I read another querulous quip maligning the second month recently. The writer muttered something about the dank, dismal slushiness and, as usual, sighed that “at least it is a short month.” But I, apparently alone, feel joy when January’s page can at last be torn away, revealing the freshness of February.
“Sure,” people say, “It’s your birthday this month; of course you like it. But wait till you’re old, then you’ll sing a different song…” Ah, but I am old, relatively. And my heart still leaps lightly when I staple those hot pink hearts on my classroom calendar poster, replacing the somber snowflakes of January. Besides, my birthday was never a solo event. It came at the end of an almost exhausting week of festive feasting at our house. First, on the seventeenth, we celebrate my dad. Birthday cake, new gloves, homemade cards, chocolate-covered orange sticks—one year my mom gave him a surprise party. It was an effort to dispel the tragic gloom that had descended in October after our neighbor’s accidental death. I don’t think it worked. But the birthday worked the year I was a senior in high school, and they’d been not speaking for several weeks after a big blow-up over some money problem, and my sister and I were worried. My dad had actually been sleeping in the spare bed upstairs. I think they were both sorry, but didn’t know how to end it, and on the morning of his birthday, my mom went about the day as birthdays were always done: presents on your breakfast plate, the cheery song, greetings from the whole family. By evening, the cake and ice cream had been consumed and a different atmosphere was in the house. The next morning, we noticed the spare bed had not been used. Whew…
The next event, just four days after daddy’s big day, is my little sister’s birthday. She was born the year of my seventh birthday, two days before. One of my aunts appeared bearing an elaborate confection of a doll whose enormous hoop skirts were formed from a cake all carefully ruffled with icing. Another aunt made me a new jumper and blouse—all mine—not handed-down—new! My just-about teen-aged sisters threw me a party after school. The living room was filled with little girls, and I got cool presents like a tiny bottle of Jergen’s hand lotion and costume jewelry. But my most vivid memory is standing with my forehead pressed against the cupboard under the wall phone, crying while I spoke to mom who’d called from the hospital to see how the party was going, and wish me a happy birthday. But all I really wanted was her to be home, where she usually was, and not gone, leaving our house bereft of heart and soul. Not even a party could make up for that. But that was the only crummy birthday my sister had. Usually, I loved her birthday. She was so sweet and cute. Also, it left only one more holiday before my Big Day.
You see, not only could my mother make angel food cake--(which was the birthday cake of choice), she was the queen of pies. So how could we possibly allow George Washington’s birthday to pass without a cherry pie? This of course was served on the REAL date—not that mushy “President’s Day” which tends to obscure the glory of the Father of Our Country. Yes, we ate two birthday cakes and a cherry pie, a la mode, all in four days. Which was followed by…yet another birthday cake!!
My birthday for many years has been a solo event, a day in which I decide to have a wonderful time, regardless of what anyone else may do. I pick a gift for myself, I bring treats to my students, I bake myself a cake. I celebrate me. Then, if anyone else remembers (and they always do—I have a terrific assortment of relatives and friends) it is like gravy. I already have the meat and potatoes and the smooth shiny flow of their good wishes just floods around me as an extra serving of yum.
But birthdays and food aren’t the only reasons to love February. In the Wyoming of my childhood, January was consistently the coldest month of the year. You could count on at least a week where the HIGH was –20. This cold drag (you can’t call something that lasted so long a “snap”) would torture us for an extended period causing the cows and chickens to consume extra food and still diminish their productive output simply because all their energy went into staying warm. The entire world became brittle. My dad would plug in the engine block heater of his school bus with a thick orange extension cord trailing from the house so that he could start the motor in the indescribably sharp morning air. People would never speak while outside because then the icy air would go directly to your shocked lungs without the brief warming when you breathed it into your nose first. January was every bit of 31 days long when your weather choices were blizzard or brittle.
But something else happened in February. One morning, you’d look out and the snow looked softer. And you stepped out of the porch encased in the many layers of milking clothes, and realize that you could breath without pain. The air was warmer. It was softer. A thaw was happening. During the day, the snow around the edges of the sidewalk would melt away, exposing a tiny edge of grass. You could smell the change in the atmosphere. The animals moved differently. The cows spent time standing in the sun chewing their cuds. The cats would lie at the opening of the hay loft and bask in the warm rays. You didn’t need to huddle. Coats went unzipped. With a bare sidewalk, you could get away with regular shoes. The eaves dripped loudly all day, and icicles fell to the ground in sudden startling explosions that woke up the drowsing students in the late afternoon. Of course, March always came, and the thaw was over and blizzards raged, again. But that little respite in February helped you to keep alive the hope that winter would eventually give way.
February is larded with the riches of famous people’s birthdays. Longfellow, Langston Hughes, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rosa Parks. Edison, Lindberg, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. Four presidents: William Henry Harrison, and Ronald Reagan along with the celebrated births of Lincoln and Washington. Artist Grant Wood, musician Jascha Heifetz, singer Leontyne Price, and actor Jack Benny. There are so many more. I realize that everyone has to born sometime, and you can probably get into a contest with me over your favorite month’s famous. But there was something going on in our home town. In my high school class over one third of our 130 students were born in February. It probably had everything to do with the month that occurs nine months previous: May. Spring, at last…
But, seriously, who can hate a month with a great holiday like Ground Hog’s Day?? And I realize that Valentine’s Day is a relationship mine-field for adults, but school children still love folding and cutting those perfect little hearts from colored paper to decorate their bags and then the thrilling moment of examining their cards to see who gave who what. And the cards I receive as the teacher show careful thought: I always got the Steve Young cards and the Harley Davidson cards. It is the official holiday of chocolate: ‘nough said.
Yes, February is difficult to spell, and in many parts of the world it is slushy and grim. But it is short, and filled with celebrations if you care to look for them. And in San Diego, it is the month the jacaranda trees start to bloom. So, here’s to my favorite month, when you can really tell the days are getting longer, and every four years, you get an extra day to enjoy.
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