Editorial: February
The smallest in the family, but unique among its siblings for much more than size.
It’s the only shape-shifter, changeling and magician, which every now and then becomes larger with a leap, and then, presto! — well, a year later — it returns to its small but distinct stature.
Some call February a cheat and unfair, since rent and mortgages must be paid, when other months add two or three days extra for the same price of a roof over your head.
It seems that when the world was young (which with Februarylogic we call ancient) and the Roman calendar was on the drawing board, some sages came up with a calendar of 10 months, running from March to December.
January and February were not even worth a thought since there was no harvesting of anything in those 60 or so days, so it was kickback time; pass the figs and vino and who cares what the date is?
But the adults in the room belted their togas and decided this had to be sorted out. They aligned the calendar to the lunar year, which took no breaks. Numa Pompilius, the head Roman adult, added January and February, making each 28 days, but then changed this because some conspiracy theorist said that these numbers were unlucky.
Fake science! Finally January was given 31 days and February remained at 28 days, superstition be damned.
February contains surprises. It has, dead center in its progression toward March, a day institutionalizing love, which might be a good or bad thing. Good, of course, because it’s, well … love. Bad, because it makes one of the most powerful, mysterious and rewarding emotional states shake hands with those who are over-amped to sell you something.
The weather in February causes many to hide themselves from short often gloomy days at home praying for spring. But February can be beautiful. You just have to watch for it. There are dazzling days amid gray stretches where every object in the landscape catches part of the light, and a view of a field has trees standing out, gleaming.
There’s beauty, again if you watch for it, in short days of soft sun and polished steel mornings, when dawn doesn’t make a series of dramatic gestures, but slowly seeps in from the night. It’s easy to understand then that the month is named after the Latin word februum, or purification.
More surprises within the shortest month become apparent on the North Fork, when privacy and silence seem like friends to entertain and enjoy.
