Before all the frost

I spent last weekend the way at least one weekend per October should be spent, for anyone in--or within a few states of--New England: frolicking in Maine.

Vermont's my first choice.* But Maine's a close second, and when you have the chance to truck up to a charming farmhouse outside Portland with a pile of good old friends--particularly when said farmhouse belongs to the affable parents of one of those friends, whose mother is an established children's book author and has turned one whole room into a library, and they've been hosting a Harvest Party, complete with hand-pressed cider, homemade donuts, and injury-studded backyard football, for the past twenty-odd years--you go to Maine.

You've got to do this while there are things being harvested, while there are apples on the trees and warty gourds for sale and flowers blooming still. If you wait past October, you'll be too numb to properly frolic. Even with cool hobo gloves. (I went to school in the Berkshires, where there are days when liquid freezes in your nostrils--fun, briefly, the first time. These days are not far away.)

A true October frolic must include the upbeat consumption of at least three of the following: a Cortland or McIntosh apple, a fall baked good (choose one: cider donut, pumpkin or apple pie, some ugly-delicious cobbler or crisp), nature (choose one: go hiking, make noise in dry leaves, stare at trees that have turned new colors and comment on them), good company, and, of course, a book. Wear a sweater and rag socks for full effect. Bonus points for proximity to a golden retriever and for wearing an L.L. Bean product made of fleece.

What's a good book for this time of year?

Any story collection from Alice Munro. If you haven't discovered her, oh God. Go slowly. You can start anywhere. Get a compilation (Carried Away), or start with one of her recent collections (Runaway), or dip into an old classic collection (Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Friend of My Youth, The Love of a Good Woman...you can't go wrong). Or wait until this comes out on October 28!

Reading her stories--if I can use a tired analogy, because it's mid-morning and I'm tired in my cubicle--is like drinking really good wine. Nurse a glass and pay attention, and you'll start to feel it warm you up, wake you up, make your senses that much more acute, make you appreciative both of its quality--the hint of magic about it, how it couldn't be anything but itself, couldn't be made better or different--and the quality it lends to your lens on the world for a little while, or lastingly. She writes mostly about rural Canada, which isn't that far removed from rural upper New England--and in terms of tone and mood and pace and depth, everything she writes is just right for this time of year.

*If you can get to Vermont: my favorite part is the stretch along Lake Champlain between Middlebury and Burlington. Highlights include the Shelburne Museum, the Lake Champlain Chocolates factory store, quaint downtown Middlebury (chock full of local art), and the fun shopping on Church Street in Burlington. (And yes, the Ben & Jerry's factory of lore is close enough to warrant a visit; it's a fun tour, and you'll leave with a sample in your stomach, a picture of your head stuck through a hole with a cow or Ben or Jerry, and a cute little button, of which I have several, one twenty years old. I'm a veteran.) Go while the leaves are gorgeous. It's the most peaceful place I know, the upper parts of Vermont. The air smells clean and you feel so raw and alive. It always makes me itch to write. (It's clear why Breadloaf is where it is.) It makes me feel calm about the world. That's a good thing these days, right?