But I suspect that if I were placed in an isolation chamber for a week and then asked which season is really my favorite, I would say early autumn.

I come alive, quite literally, when we move away from the hot and humid weather and into the cool, crisp air. I can feel my pulse pick up, my breathing deepen, my back get straighter, my step lighter. I can work better, think better, sleep better in the pungent coolness. I get an endorphin high.

In early autumn I always feel like a banquet is laid out before me, a banquet of seasons and holidays that come in fast succession.

When the invigorating weather comes, the country fairs are in full swing. I must go to the Fryeburg Fair every year with my husband and just walk around and feel the vibes of creative accomplishment everywhere I look. We head, at our leisure, to the displays, the crafts, the goats and Farmer MacDonald’s bunnies. We check out the RVs. I must eat one or two corn dogs and a big bag of Kettle Corn.

I also enjoy the Common Ground Fair, but I have to be careful. I get peopled-out and faired-out easily, and I don’t want anything interfering with the full enjoyment of my beloved Fryeburg Fair. I wish the two were at least a month apart.

During fair time, the colors are becoming glorious. Tour buses start flocking into Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont because people all over the world wish to come and marvel at our October foliage. Weekend days, when the colors are at peak, you need to remember that travel down the Kancamagus Highway will be bumper to bumper and about five miles per hour, because there very few sights in the world equal to this, as so many people have discovered.

Country farmyards are full of pumpkins and gourds of every description and size. Again, there are not many prettier sights in life than this! You can stop and purchase as many as you need to take home and make great decorative displays, inside and out. I always want to bring a lot home, and my husband encourages this purchase because he sees future compost material in my beautiful gourds. Then I have to stand guard over my decorations so that they don’t get rushed into their next life prematurely.

The rush of holidays

Then comes Halloween, with our communities’ little ghosts and goblins coming out to scare us. This was always my son’s favorite time of year. In Northern New England on Halloween night, I can hear (in my imagination) arguments in thousands of homes that go, “But Mom, I can’t wear a jacket over my cool costume; no one will see it,” answered by, “But honey, you’ll freeze to death without it.”

Then follows Thanksgiving, traditional, delicious, patriotic. Families gather. And four days off in a row for many of us means out-of-town visits, to see relatives we miss or to visit cities we enjoy.

My husband’s birthday is around Thanksgiving, giving us a good reason to splurge on a really nice restaurant, and make an evening of it.

And then, of course, come Christmas and New Year’s Eve and Day, the pinnacle of the holiday season that we’ve been building to since early autumn. These holidays are wonderful and perhaps tumultuous. We plan for months, they come, and they go.

And then comes the letdown! The lights come down. The banquet is over. Then comes the absolute need for activities that keep the spirits up as the cold sets in for a long time. Skiing, ice skating, ice fishing, snowmobiling, all our winter sports help a lot of people cruise through the winter, happy, loving every minute of it, especially if it’s a “good winter” for their sport. And for the rest of us, there are hobbies, reading, movies, group participation, cleaning out our basements, activities that can help us through winter. We may need to put a little planning into it.

But right now, at the beginning of autumn, I won’t think that far ahead. I’ll concentrate on how good the air feels and on when the Fryeburg Fair is. And I’ll savor the banquet that is just beginning.

Dianne Russell Kidder is a writer, consultant and social worker, who is based in Lisbon. She is a regular contributor to this column. She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].