Hard days, tough weeks, long months, and yet more pandemic to come.  It’s challenging to lift ourselvesout of this funk, except if you start to think about kindness. 

Kindness to yourself – how are you doing today?  What comfort can you give to you? 

Find it and make that gift, guilt-free.  A caress of your soul. 

Feeling better? 

Pass that kindness on!  Pass it forward, see it round itself back your way.  Find yourself relaxing more, breathing out the tension, making you smile, laugh, wonder. 

Share it.   

See the smiles behind the masks (look into those eyes), feel the joyand compassionsurging in those around you.  Share a joke, make a compliment, write a noteto someone, feel the peace in the space around you.  Give to the food bank.  Give blood. Hold the library doorfor another, recommend a book to read, a DVD to watch, a book club pick, a streaming TV show that made you laugh.Pick up a Library Month Kindness Calendar at your nearest open branch of OPL. 

The library at its essence is about kindness– sharing a collection, being a place to find others, learning more about the world, inspiring connection and self-improvement, caring for what others care for too. The library responds to your needs, by including what reflects you and your neighbours, friends, people youdon’t knowbut share a city, a community, a library with!  It includes the world and cultivates what is good about it, and gives it to you through words, images, music, and so much more for your imagination, your heart, your mind. 

And let that imagination imagine kindness. Community. Respect. Patience. Understanding.  Support for what you need for your soul. 

That’s the Library. 

Weare livinga historical event that will notbe over soon enough for most of us.  But it has also caused us to pause and rethink our habits, listen more carefullyand notice the small things.  May it turn us to doing kindnesses, too.   

Let our collection inspire you.  Even during this pandemic, the Library invites and welcomes you. Come to the library during Library Month and find kindness from our employeeswho are happy to help you connect with books, databases, learningtools, online programming(and much more!)that will help keep you in touch,happy and well. 

Kindness: Take it to heart and pass it on! 

Happy Library Month! 

We’ll get through this togetherby staying strong and wise,and raisingour daily quotient of kindnesswith these uplifting reads for a Library Month celebrating kindness: 

https://ottawa.bibliocommons.com/list/share/354296247_collection_development/1736097199_kindnessla_gentillesse_(juvenile)

https://ottawa.bibliocommons.com/list/share/354296247_collection_development/1736097930_kindnessla_gentillesse_(teen)

https://ottawa.bibliocommons.com/list/share/354296247_collection_development/1736097659_kindnessla_gentillesse_(adult)