The Polar Opposites of February
Jane from Seattle emailed me today with a fitting quote from Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume:
“They say that February is the shortest month, but you know they could be wrong. Compared, calendar page against calendar page, it looks to be the shortest, all right. Spread between January and March like lard on bread, it fails to reach the crust on either slice. In its galoshes- and you’ll never catch February in stocking feet- it’s a full head shorter than December, although in leap years, when it has growth spurts, it comes up to April’s nose. However more abbreviated than its cousins it may look, February feels longer than any of them. It is the meanest moon of winter, all the more cruel because it will masquerade as spring, occasionally for hours at a time, only to rip off its mask with a sadistic laugh and spit icicles into every gullible face, behavior that grows quickly old.
“February is pitiless, and it is boring. That parade of red numerals on it’s page adds up to zero: birthdays of politicians, a holiday reserved for rodents, what kind of celebrations are those? The only bubble in the flat champagne of February is Valentine’s Day. It was no accident that our ancestors pinned Valentine’s Day on February’s shirt: he or she lucky enough to have a lover in frigid, antsy February has cause for celebration, indeed.
“Except for the extent that it ‘tines the buds and swells the leaves within,’ February is as useless as the extra r in its name. It behaves like an obstacle, a wedge of slush and mud and ennui, holding both progress and contentment at bay. James Joyce was born in February, as was Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, which goes to show that writers are poor at beginnings, although worst at knowing when to stop.
“If february is the color of lard on rye, its aroma is that of wet wool trousers. As far sound, it is an abstract melody played on a squeaky violin, the petty whine of a shrew with cabin fever. O February, you may be little but you’re small! Were you twice your tiresome length, few of us would survive to greet the merry month of May.”
And either to defy that or to prove it right, today the spring crocuses bloomed on Fork Mountain! Look closely at the photo I’ve posted on the sidebar of my website and you can see the dew droplets on the side of the open petals. Click here.
