How does it happen that in a country, any country, where most people want to live their lives in peace, they are carried into war? Some days ago I went for a walk with friends on a path along a creek, a new path but with friends I often walk with. There I was, putting one foot in front of the other, when it struck me how amazing it is to walk, temporarily balancing on one leg, then shifting to the other, without falling over. Standing on one leg is not easy at all, yet this constant switching from one to the other is so easy small children learn to do it. A rainstorm had gone, leaving bright, gorgeous clouds behind it. It was an ordinary walk on an ordinary day, and it was breathtakingly beautiful.

Then I went home and read the news. Imagine the friends you walk with and the landscape you love most, grew up with, or live in now, destroyed by someone who thought that was a good idea. It’s hard to see how he could have believed this would make life better for his own people. Anger breeds more anger. Peace is hard for us.

The path and the park along Mill Creek look peaceful, but nature is full of conflict. Fish come to the surface of the creek to eat insects. Herons and egrets spear the fish. Territorial disputes break out between birds. Territorial disputes, in fact, break out among many of our fellow creatures. We fit right in.

But we do all sorts of things that other species don’t. We’re mammals but walk on two legs. We communicate, but at light speed all around the world. We believe we’re pretty smart. We should be able to think up a better way to deal with each other. William Butler Yeats said, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.” Yeats wrote that over a hundred years ago, in a place thousands of miles from the current conflict. I like to believe that poetry expresses universal truths, things true not just in the moment but for all time. I hope this isn’t one of them.

Doug built a “Little Free Library” for me. He decided on a model with two shelves, since I go through a lot of books. He dug two post holes for it, cemented the posts in, and up it went. While we were out there putting the finishing touches on it, several neighbors stopped by. Every one of them said, Oh good, I have books to put in it. Um, I was thinking this was how I was going to get rid of books – I mean, disperse them. Distribute them. I wanted people to take the books out. Now I could just see a whole neighborhood’s worth of books crammed in, spilling out, piled up on the grass, getting rained on, turning into pulp, coming to an ignominious end. Well, at least the Wet Paint sign would keep people from filling it up before I got my books out there.

It was foggy in the morning when I picked up my big bag of saved books, and stocked the little library. I used to save books I’d read and enjoyed, thinking I would re-read them, but all the while acquiring new books, stacks of them tottering in random places around my workroom, swaying precariously as the cat wove her way in and out of the nooks they created. Eventually I realized I have enough new stock to last approximately two lifetimes, thus rendering the re-reading theory less than realistic. I still have some favorites I do re-read and will keep – The Joy of Cooking, Emily Dickinson, The Lord of the Rings – but for most others, better to find new readers for them than have them languish, unenjoyed.

Next morning Doug took the Wet Paint sign off, and waited for me in the fog while I lined the books up on the new shelves. We went for our walk, came home, and I sat by my window – reading, of course – and saw two different people stop by the Little Library. Our street doesn’t have much traffic but it has a lot of walkers. After the second visitor I went out to see how the books were doing. I was prepared for either an increase or a decrease; but I was not prepared for the notes people had left: a thank you; a promise to bring me some Icelandic poetry; a business card with a smiley face. It made me smile, too.

The fog had lifted now and it was a bright day, the early autumn colors coming out in the trees. It turned out that a Little Free Library was an occasion for gratitude and conversation. It’s only the first day –  piles of books may yet appear – but it won’t be so bad if they come with more of these nice notes.