october road.

october is my absolute favorite month. it is the most beautiful, festive, aromatic, exciting time of the year (december comes a VERY CLOSE second). but you cannot beat sweaters and scarves, pumpkin spice everything, baking, foliage, and all the fabulous activities that mean fall has arrived in the northeast. for more examples, this posting by "the frenemy" should outline all of the other positives about this, my favorite season.

i also have such intense, visceral memories tied to this time of year. there's something about the smells and the colors that transport me back to my childhood and beyond; halloween costumes always ruined by a mandatory jacket, everyone lighting fires in their fireplaces, apple crisp ice cream on a cone i made myself, leaf fights, hiking trips, and the closeness to home that i felt and still feel each time the fall rolls in. autumn belongs to new england.

and so, just as i did with summertime, i will make a list of goals/to-dos that will fill my october:

1. baking - including, but not limited to: apple spice bread, pumkin bread pudding, at least one apple pie, pumpkin whoopie pies. new recipies and old.
2. apple picking upstate with the boyfriend, as has become our autumnal tradition.
3. finding/making a wonderful halloween costume (usually last-minute)
4. movie nights - including, but not limited to: hocus pocus, it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown, and anything/everything on the on-demand seasonal listing.
5. carve a pumpkin. probably more than one.

the list is short, but that's only because this month is going to be crammed with all sorts of happenings to off-set the frivolity. the last week of felix & the diligence, a vacation to DISNEY WORLD (what?) with the boyfriend, the pipeline theatre company annual retreat at a beautiful sprawling farmhouse in connecticut, a wedding, and job-hunting/hopping in the meantime.

i have been younger in october than in all the months of spring.
 –w.s. merwin