Dealing with February
Marianne Janack
When I was in elementary school, I had a teacher who taught us an ingenious trick for keeping track of which months were 31 days long and which were 30 because most of us couldn’t remember the little rhyme that was supposed to capture this knowledge. The trick was right there in our hands, she said, all you do is count on your knuckles. The first knuckle on your left hand stands for January (31 days); the indentation that comes next is February; the next knuckle is March (31 days); the next indentation is April (30 days), etc. The last knuckle on your left hand stands for July (31 days); the first knuckle on your right hand stands for August (also 31 days), and the pattern repeats.
But you see the problem: you still have to remember that February doesn’t have 30 days, but only 28
Except every four years, when it has 29.
Unless that year is divisible by 100 but not by 400.
So then you need to remember the Leap Years, too.
Why, of all the months, was February chosen to be made longer every four years? Before the Leap Day, February 29, was introduced, the way that calendars dealt with the adjustment required to keep the calendar in line with the Earth’s movement was by repeating another day: February 24. So, February always technically had 28 days, except that February 24 came twice in the leap years—which, of course, was every four years, unless the year was divisible by 100 but not 400.
Legend has it that when the Julian calendar was created, emperors took days from February and added them to the month named for them. But, of course, the Julian calendar (and its successor, the Gregorian calendar) aren’t the only calendars. The Gregorian calendar tried to balance the need for a uniform civil calendar with the goal of coordinating the seasons and Christian holidays and reflecting the number of days it takes the Earth to travel around the Sun. Some calendars are governed by the moon and its phases rather than by the sun; some calendars allow for “floating” holidays. They all have their quirks, faults, and Februarys---like us.
February used to be the last month of the year, and it is (technically) the last month of winter---though it certainly does not feel like that’s true in Central New York, where I live and where I grew up. “Everyone hates February,” one historian of time-keeping remarked. But hating on February is a modern tradition in the northern hemisphere. A reporter in St. Louis garnered a lot of attention by posting his sour commentary about February. Though it is the month of Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day, he observes, it is also the month that includes Ash Wednesday: a day meant to remind us all that we’ll die. The video footage he featured—city dwellers scurrying through mist and fog; a cheery-looking but broken umbrella—was meant to show the misery and darkness of February. It is a month, the reporter said, that doesn’t hold up an image of life that makes it seem better than it is. It is the state of nature month: nasty, brutish, and short.
Our Gregorian calendar is meant for civil life—or, we might say, a bureaucratic life. It gives us the feeling that we’ve gained an extra day every four years—as my friend and student Gabi says in her reflection—and it can give us a sense of possibility; it can feel like a gift. Maybe this comes down to a difference in age, or in temperament, but Leap Day to me just means that I have an extra day before I have to meet all those March 1 deadlines: letters of recommendation; annual reviews; book manuscript; article; and even this newsletter.
But at least it’s National Frogs’ Leg Day, so I’ll go to Price Chopper in Syracuse to buy some. I never get the opportunity to eat frogs’ legs. Perhaps I’ll make it a tradition. But the problem with frogs’ legs is that you have to eat a lot of them if you want a proper meal because they don’t offer a lot of meat; they’re mostly bone. And then, of course, there’s the question: what happens to the rest of the frog? Forgotten, maybe—maybe as we forget, or try to forget, much of February.