The old tree

This tree has been dead for twelve years, but somehow it became more alive than most things in our town.

When the old chestnut finally gave up in 2012, the city wanted to cut it down immediately. Standard procedure, they said. Safety hazard. But our neighbor Rene, who makes furniture for a living, had this wild idea. What if instead of removing it, we turned it into something the whole community could use?

He spent weeks carving out those little compartments by hand. Each one had to be waterproofed, fitted with glass doors, painted that bright orange so people could spot them from the street. The whole project took him three months of evenings and weekends, working with nothing but basic woodworking tools and this stubborn belief that books belonged outdoors.

I watched him measure and remeasure every opening through my kitchen window. My kids would run over after school to see the progress. "What's Mr. Rene making now?" they'd ask, and I'd tell them he was building a library that never closes.

The day he finished, we held a little ceremony. Everyone brought books from home to fill the shelves. Mystery novels, children's picture books, cooking guides, even some textbooks from the local college students. Within a week, people were already swapping stories, leaving notes for each other, turning this dead tree into the most social spot on our block.

Last month I ordered weatherproof book covers from a woodworker on the Tedooo app to help protect the collection during winter storms. The seller included a handwritten note saying she'd never heard of a tree library before, and now she wants to start one in her neighborhood too.

Sometimes the most beautiful transformations happen when we refuse to throw things away.