Everyday Canvas

The Leap-Year Day

Prompt: Happy February 29! What does ‘leap year’ mean to you and, what do you think are the positives and negatives of being in one?

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The word leap year feels like an off year, at best, and sounds like the calendar has jumped up and down in place as if jumping rope. This leap year is slightly more weighty because it is the Monday before what the TV calls Super Tuesday, the Tuesday which is phantomlike, crouching low, ready to attack, so to draw swan songs from a few presidential hopefuls. When all is said and done, the fewer of those hopefuls, the less nauseated I'll feel.

Leap year, to me,is an extra day in February. The positives are--however mistakenly--I feel like I gained a day in my life; akin to the time when the clocks are set back an hour in Autumn, I feel I have an extra hour. What's more, today is another day to keep me from doing the things I usually do on the first of March. The negatives? I can't think of any, except for calling February 29 a false positive.

The idea of adding a day to make up for the smidgen of time left over from other years due to the earth’s decimalized rotation around the sun goes back to ancient Egypt. I am guessing that’s why the Irish legend for women to propose to men on a leap-year day could originate in the olden times. The funniest rule of this practice, I think, was put into effect by Queen Margaret of Scotland who set fines for the men who had turned down women’s marriage proposals on a leap year.

I guess, my father and I, who have the same birthday, held on another day to be born in order not to be leap-year babies, not because of Queen Margaret, but possibly because of the birthday cake and other stuff that come with birthdays. Imagine celebrating one’s birthday every four years! Kinda like Pope Paul III, who was a leap-year baby. Yet, regardless of the great people born on a leap-year day, the richest lives are the simpler ones, and I am glad my life was not any more complicated than it already has been, had I been born a few hours earlier.