A free extra day to mess up or enjoy as you like? I’ll take it
IPRESUME that we’ll all be setting our alarm clocks to lift us out of it a little earlier tomorrow morning to get a good run at the day. After all, it’s not every year that gifts us an extra one.
In case you’re wondering why we need an additional day on the shortest month every four years, here’s a spoonful of science: instead of stretching to the full 24 hours, a single earthly rotation actually only takes 23 hours and 56 minutes, and a single revolution of the sun takes a ragged 365.24129 days. The ancient Egyptians were the first to adjust their slightly off kilter calendars accordingly by adding an extra quarter day to the year every fourth year. But it was no less a foresighted astronomer than Julius Caesar who properly made up the shortfall by adding a day to every fourth February, which, during Roman times, was the last month of the year.
February 29 has always felt to me a little like an unexpected free class in school when the teacher hasn’t shown up. I think of it as time that hasn’t been allocated or accounted for; it’s sort of a free run at a day that, if it doesn’t work out for you, doesn’t have to be written up in any sort of official record. It is, if you like, an off-thebooks day.
I don’t know whether marriage proposals issued on February 29 are as valid as those which happen on other days, though I suppose it depends on the answer. Up until embarrassingly recently, I had no idea that this was an exclusively Irish tradition – though that certainly explains that strange Leap Year film – and I literally only learnt yesterday that the custom is supposed to relate to an agreement between St Patrick and St Brigid to facilitate women getting a shift on in their romantic lives. That being said, the same Wikipedia entry that enlightened me on that subject also detailed something called the Skellig List – whereby women on Skellig Michael who were still single at the start of Lent were publicly shamed – which is obviously completely nuts since the remote island was only ever inhabited by monks, who presumably more or less had Lent all year round, and makes me question all the other Wikipedia ‘facts’ by which I live my life.
Anyway, if you want to propose to your beloved tomorrow, then knock yourself out, with the added insurance that if it doesn’t go well, you can always write it off as occurring on a practice day that doesn’t count. I don’t know whether February 29 is consequently a popular day for weddings, though I’d counsel that such a marriage would need to last 40 years just to get to its tin anniversary, with all the cheapskate presents that involves. For that same reason, happy birthday to all the 84 year olds getting the key of the door tomorrow as they finally reach their 21st birthday.
PERSONALLY, I feel like February 29 is a perfect day to try something new in the knowledge that if it doesn’t work out, nobody can ridicule you next year with an unwelcome ‘do you remember this day last year’ prompt. You could try sea swimming for the first time, or ride a horse side saddle or hula hoop in front of your kids. Anything is possible because all the things that immediately prove impossible can be kept off the calendar.
Which might explain why when, undaunted by the Skelligs List business, I asked the internet what important events have happened on February 29, it offered up slim pickings. Hattie McDaniel became the first African American person to win an Oscar on February 29 1940, when she was obliged to sit at a segregated table for two by the wall as the venue had a no blacks policy. Acclaim and atrocious insult in the same evening: maybe that’s why the organisers plumped for February 29 for their half-effort at progress. But aside from that, it’s amazing how few events of significance happened on February 29. That we know about. I’ll bet loads of mad things happened that were kept off the books because, well, they could.
That said, memory and history are two different things and I have to admit that the last February 29 was one of the worst days of my life. My beloved elderly dog finally sighed his last and amidst the tears and sadness later that day, we noted the headline that the first case of Covid had been confirmed in Ireland.
Maybe it’s just as well then that it only comes around once every four years. Whatever you get up to, may it be exactly as memorable – or as conveniently forgettable – as you hope.