A Lesson From the Crows

Note: We got a lot of kind emails from people with our end-of-the-year newsletter and we wanted to post it here, for those who hadn’t been able to read it. We published it in late December, but believe the sentiment should be year-round.

This fall, after the leaves had dropped and the bare branches of trees revealed an ash-gray sky, I noticed a pair of crows outside my window. For several days in a row, they landed in the same spot along the telephone wire. One morning, I poured a cup of coffee and sat down to watch them. I saw that gradually, one crow would sidestep along the wire and commence preening and tending the other, who would lean into the attention. The longer I watched, the more the two separate birds looked like a unified creature, one and the same. They are out there looking after each other,  I thought. We humans could take a lesson. 

The Street Books librarians lend thousands of books to our library patrons each year, but they are also the keepers of stories. They know when one of our library patron's cancer has gone into remission and they know when someone has lost family photos when their belongings were swept. The interactions are composed of conversations about books, but they are also opportunities for listening, for knowing one another's names, sharing a hug, a moment of solidarity. 

When I started Street Books in 2011, I believed that access to books and kind conversation had the potential to make a powerful difference in people's lives. I couldn't have predicted what an incredible community would spring up, librarians and patrons together, and how they would take care of each other. As we mark the beginning of a new year, may we sidestep over and tend the one next to us, may we extend gestures of kindness, so that from a distance, it's difficult to tell where one of us begins and the other ends. 

Love, light & solidarity in 2020,

Laura Moulton, Executive Director