I turn the last page and set down the book. “North Woods” by Daniel Mason. My thoughts whirl, thinking about the story, or more accurately, the interwoven stories threaded throughout. I ponder time, layers, connections. Think about change. About humans and nature. I read again the NPR review on the back cover: “Gorgeous… a tale of ephemerality and succession, of the way time accrues in layers, like sedimentary soil.” My mind wanders back over all the layers of the book. The interconnected tissue of it all. The strata. This one will stay with me, I think.

Done with reading, I turn to chores. I pull out the old cardboard box that I took from my dad’s house after his death. On it is a label Black, Starr & Gorham, Fifth Avenue, New York. Within it are the components of a three-layer glass and silver tiered dessert stand. What is its story?

I suspect it was a wedding gift for my parents, though I’ll never know. There’s no one to ask now. But the box has been sitting in my closet, neatly tucked away for several years now. I am relatively certain that it was never used. The layers of confetti-ed yellowing paper packaging seem intact. I’m not even sure why I took it with me when we cleaned out the house. About a week ago, though, I realized I might be able to polish it up and use it at the upcoming baby shower for our first grandchild. My parents’ great-grandchild. I liked that idea. I felt the tug of a connection.

Now, I open the box and pull out the pieces. The silver rims are dark with tarnish. The patina of age. A visible record of time’s passing. I take a silver polishing cloth and begin to rub gently. The dark transfers to the cloth. Bit by bit, glowing silver emerges from time’s ravages. I gently work the cloth over and over the dingy surface. I slow down, finding the task deeply soothing. I think about the book again. About the past, the present, the future. 

Time. Layers. Change.

After the piece is fully cleaned and temporarily restored to its box, I google the company, Black, Starr & Gorham. What is it’s story?

I learn that, though it’s gone through a variety of names, it is an American jewelry company, operating since 1810. The first article I click on focuses (by chance?) on the construction and subsequent changes over time to the company’s headquarters on Fifth Avenue. The original design, much applauded, was Italian renaissance with an exterior of white marble. But in 1962, the building was sold to a bank company that promised they’d change the interior but leave the exterior unchanged. It was a piecrust promise, for in 1964 the editor of the New York Times lamented, “its finely detailed, elegantly proportioned exterior is being destroyed, and the building will be refaced with a nondescript, banal and ordinary new ‘skin.’ “ And then in  2018, it was again remodeled, acquiring yet another facade. 

Time. Layers. Change.

I’m struck by all of this. Feel my thoughts churning, lifting, sifting. Thinking about how the past resides within the present. How change marks us and our surroundings. How the layers mount and shift. How hidden connections, stories, run through all of this. The book, my parents’ tarnished dessert stand, and the continuous remodeling of a building in New York. It all feels strangely connected. 

And then there’s a baby coming.

Time. Layers. Change.