In 48 hours, I’ll be back in one of my favorite little nooks, tucked behind one of our dilapidated black flats that I love so much, giving cues to actors and passing out props before they head out onto the stage. The goal? To entertain. The means? Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. I was wholly unfamiliar with this story, I’ll admit, but it has made me laugh many times.
One of the plot twists happens to the main character, Frederic. (Spoiler!) He had been indentured to a band of pirates, but at midnight on his 21st birthday, he immediately left them behind and started to fight against them. However, his old pirate master shows up to inform Frederic that his birthday is February 29th, and thus he’s really only 5 and a ¼ years old and has to go back into servitude.
February gets a bad rap in this musical. I believe the exact words in the song are “such a beastly month as February.” People are more than ready for Winter to be over, and here is just one more month standing in their way of spring. Now, I’ve heard that as a rule, we tend to feel somewhat partial toward our birthday months, so I fully admit that this is at play here. But I do believe this month has an undeserved reputation of being dismal and blah.
February speaks to me of promise and hope. There are “teaser” days that hint to us that perhaps spring is coming. Some people call it “false hope,” and having spent 9 winters in Minnesota, I get that. True Spring doesn’t arrive until April, at the earliest, and that feels a long way from February, but to me those random warm February days aren’t false at all. They are the certainty of Spring that has never failed to show up yet, and those early foreshadowings stand as messengers. They’re the early inhales of nature waking up, remembering to stretch out roots, testing and proving that it’s going to be safe to bloom again soon. In the grand narrative where Autumn represents the death of Good Friday and Spring is the resurrection of Easter Sunday, February is those early hours of 2 - 5 am on Sunday. The day is here. Resurrection is assured. Just look at that sunset inching past the 6pm mark, feel those golden rays on your face (even if just for a day), hear that lone birdsong as you brush your teeth in the morning. February is anticipation.
Much as I will stand in the wings in 48 hours and fist-bump the cast and crew over a job well done, I stand watching the first rays of hope stretch across these 28 days we call February. And I dare to call it good.
