“From dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”
The cobblestones below my feet are a dark tar brown, their natural wood grain split and worn and ironed into place. This street is called Roslyn Place and like all old landmarks, it is a humble reminder of my insignificance. I can imagine that the cobblestones where I now stand were once glided over by lamp lit carriages, pulled daintily by a pair of fine-boned Morgans. Perhaps the people in that carriage wondered at the future of this street. Would it remain to see the next 100 years or would the creosote-soaked blocks splinter and crack away into disrepair and obsolescence? Some of the blocks have already shriveled into woodchips, only to be replaced by new, shiny, smooth ones. How many years will it take for the street to be a completely different one from the one I stand on?
Either in denial of the street’s erosion or pride in its slow surrender to time, the people who live at Roslyn Place point out its patina, obvious in the beveled edges of the cracked and weathered oak. They are stewards of time and its stories, passing them off to the curious yet unsuspecting passersby so that the existence of the street might not be forgotten. They tell me, this is the last Nicolson street, one of the last in America. I make a note in my brain, but I wasn’t sure if I felt appreciative or burdened by this knowledge. I didn’t want to consider what being the last of anything could mean, but even drifting my gaze over to the fallen leaves, weighed down by a recent rain, I could not escape this fact. Come spring the leaves will crumble into a dust that settles between the cracked wood grains, invisible to our eyes but still existent. All things eventually become the last.
Being last doesn’t mean being forgotten, so I tried to capture the memory of the street on my phone camera. It remains indifferent to my documentation, just as it was indifferent to the clip of hooves a century ago, and just as I hope it will be when countless seasons come and go. It will remain indifferent to all of us who pass by and stare in awe at the dark wood, counting the centuries since it was first constructed. But the wood came from the earth and no matter our awe or its indifference, it will return.
