April ice, E. Thetford, VT — by Robin Osborne
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:
Just short note about the joys of living in our small-town community of the Upper Valley. A couple weeks ago I was walking with a friend along Pavilion Road near Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford. It was one of those classic March days when you need a jacket and hat if the sun is behind the clouds, but not when the sun is shining. So, I did the jacket-and-hat-on-and-off thing a few times during the walk. Alas, when I reached home, my hat was not with me. So I quickly drove back down to the scene of my mishap and looked diligently and unsuccessfully for my (favorite) blue hat.
Knowing the kind of community we live in, I figured some other walker had picked up my hat with the intention of reuniting it with its owner. So I promptly posted a "lost hat" note to our Thetford community email group. Within hours I learned that my hat was in safe hands with friends from the church on Thetford Hill. The next day was Sunday and I happily wore it home from church. Thank you, Ray and Mary.
— Robin Osborne
Dear Daybreak:
For the fourth year in a row, a pair of ravens has built a nest in the beams of the Paddock Road bridge near my home along the Black River. I named them "Bridger & Bridget," and they are currently fledging several chicks. The thought of catching a glimpse of the babies as they grow inspires me to take the quarter-mile walk to the bridge every day! Turn the volume up to hear those chicks requesting a snack:
— Kelly Stettner, Springfield, VT
Dear Daybreak:
It was the last day of March. That morning I had a “samadhi-like” experience on my walk into a field across the road and up-up a hill from where I live in Thetford Center…it was so totally absorbing and beautiful…and a bit unworldly!
Samadhi is a Pali word (a Theravada Buddhist term) meaning: mental concentration, collectedness, unification of mind.
I stood calmly present and absorbed…watching the very last left-over patches of snow at the field’s edge turn directly into vapor, sublimating into a continuous, rising translucent veil. Though time stood still, perhaps ten minutes later this area of lifted-transformed moisture had fully moved up and joined the low cloudy ceiling.
The experience was subtle, ethereal, exquisite, and captivating! It wasn’t just the beautiful train of fog that I also saw below, pressed down into the river valley of the Ompompanoosuc… these small, rising fog-clouds were emanating right out of the now bare spring field directly in front of my eyes! Felt like nature provided a private magic show. I was awestruck and speechless.
— Barbara Woodard, Thetford
