Mount Cube from Orford, by Paul Goundrey, 2021 (one of the earliest “daybreak” photos).
Welcome to “Dear Daybreak”, a weekly Daybreak column. It features short vignettes about life in the Upper Valley: an encounter, a wry exchange, a poem or anecdote or reflection… Anything that happened in this region or relates to it and that might strike us all as interesting or funny or poignant.
Want to submit your own Dear Daybreak item? Just go here!
Dear Daybreak:
In the supermarket on a pleasant March day some years ago, I turned down an aisle and saw a couple at the opposite end. She, in business attire: dark skirt, white blouse, leather boots, blazer, salt and pepper hair pulled back in a neat bun. He, dressed for a different business: plaid shirt, jeans, belt and suspenders, logger boots with some leather worn off the steel toes. His hat, with a frayed visor that once had a readable logo, was now dark with farm dirt. He needed a haircut. They proceeded down the aisle, and as she put items in the cart, he picked them up and went back to the shelf to look at the price. More than once, there was an exchange for what surely was a lower-priced item.
I was behind them at the checkout counter. Next to the checkout was a display with bunches of bright yellow daffodils, $2. She reached out and picked up a bunch.
He: “Are you going to buy those?”
She: “Yes, they’ll make me happy.”
She reached for a second bunch.
He: “Are you going to buy two!”
She: “Yes, they’ll make me twice as happy.”
I bought two.
— Stephen Bobin, Cornish
Dear Daybreak:
When Harrison Ford recently accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award, he spoke about empathy, imagination, and the privilege of storytelling. But what stayed with me was his story of finding his people — a group of theatre students he once dismissed as misfits. I smiled when I heard that. I knew exactly what he meant. Those misfits are the ones who are willing to look ridiculous in front of strangers. They are the ones who feel everything.
I remember fondly some of the students I have directed over the years and their bravery to take to the stage even during those perilous years of middle school. I remember two boys who were willing to dress like girls in a production of Pirates of Penzance. The moment of the big reveal when they took off their wigs was one of my favorite theatre memories.
Harrison Ford spoke with great emotion about how lucky he is to have had the career he’s had in the entertainment business and to be able to continue doing what he loves. Here’s what he said: “As actors, we get to live many lives. We get to explore ideas that affirm and elevate our shared experience. The stories we tell have a unique capacity to create moments of emotional connection. They bring us together. We share the privilege of working in the world of ideas, of empathy, of imagination."
Most powerful in his words was his reverence for the business of acting and storytelling. He spoke of the bravery of fellow actors who get to become someone else and share their hearts with us. The business and the craft of acting is indeed brave work. To allow yourself to be inhabited by someone else is the ultimate act of trust.
This is why we do it. When I am in the throes of putting on a show, friends often ask me why I put myself through it—the work and the stress. And there is plenty of both. There are a million small pieces that have to come together for a quality production, especially since in my theatre company, We the People Theatre, we are a team of mostly volunteers with other commitments, work, and family. For the time we are together, we throw ourselves into the work. We huddle together backstage, we move together and breathe together. We build something ephemeral and fiercely alive. Then we strike the set and return to our separate lives. But something remains. A shared language. A shared courage. A shared memory of having made something together. Some of my dearest friends in my life, I have met in the theatre. Harrison Ford called it the world of ideas, empathy, imagination. I call it finding my people.
— Perry Allison, Thetford
Dear Daybreak:
I was quietly devastated to learn that Lyme author and illustrator John Stadler passed away in February.
I first met John when I was 7; he was the artist-in-residence at the Enfield Village School, and he helped each second grader write and illustrate our own book. I wrote a whimsical story about the adventures of a wayward beach ball—but someone (perhaps John) must have told me to write what I knew, as this otherwise innocuous tale was absolutely riddled with vomiting cats. My childhood was full of cats regurgitating hairballs and grass and half-eaten meals, and so each of the ball's adventures at the beach or in outer space similarly included seasick (or spacesick) cats. John took it all in stride, dutifully transcribing the narrative as I illustrated the increasingly disgusting scenes, never judging or questioning whether this particular plot device was strictly necessary.
As you can imagine, this was a favorite anecdote in my family, and I would later pull out my book from time to time to laugh and appreciate John's patience (how had he repeated this exercise with thirty feral second graders?!).
Years later, I was building an exhibition of children's illustrators and realized that alongside Tomie dePaola, Ilse Plume, Steven Kellogg, D.B. Johnson, and Clement Hurd, I absolutely had to include John Stadler. He graciously accepted the invitation, and as we were discussing the logistics, he began to pry into my background. How did I get into museum work? Was I from the area? I eventually admitted that we had met before. With no further prompting, John delightedly exclaimed, "You're the vomiting cat girl!"
Apparently my disgusting story had been as memorable for him as for me, and he was overjoyed that our paths had crossed again. He signed my childhood copy of The Adventures of Snail at School and wryly wondered if the wrong artist's works were hanging in the exhibition. For me, it was a joy to exhibit his art as part of the "Illustrating the Imagination" show and to see his original artwork from the Snail stories, One Seal, and his many other wonderful tales. John was the most engaged of all the artists I exhibited, attending museum events and signings, and he remained as patient, as drily funny, and as generous as he had been two decades earlier.
I've now had the privilege of introducing my son to the works of John Stadler, and of watching him laugh his head off at the antics of Snail and John's other creations. It breaks my heart that we won't have the opportunity to cross paths one more time, but I'm grateful for John's many books that will keep his humor and his wonderful imagination alive for another generation—mercifully with a dearth of vomiting cats.
— Nicole Ford Burley, Lebanon
Editor’s note: From time to time, Stadler also contributed to Daybreak. Here are two of the items he sent along:
