With today being Leap Day in this Leap Year of 2012, thought I’d blog this week on the idea of such a time. Though Julius Caesar established the 365-day calendar about 2,000 years ago, it was the Eygptians who added a Leap Day every 4 years and the Romans who choose February 29th–all this was needed because planet Earth doesn’t orbit the sun in an even 365 days. In reality, it takes 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds to do this. So you can see how a Leap Day is a necessary adjustment.
Of course, why is this important to Aurora in the novel “Light Fixtures”? Because, as Leap Day is an odd slice of life, so are Aurora’s moods in the story. And as she’s in the early stages of teen bipolar disorder, she doesn’t notice anything odd–other than at times her two friends in the night woods, one a guide who seems so intense about her knowledge of who she is, and the other who’s equally intense about showing her the way to the guide’s cabin–about her mania, nor later her depression. She doesn’t identify these up-and-down thoughts, feelings, and actions as teen bipolar.
And, with 1963 not being a Leap year (1964 would be), Aurora’s not thinking about the odd day, anyway. If she were, she might remember that sometimes odd days or odd events might just be a time to consider one’s own idiosyncratic ways, ways that might indeed differ from the norm.
Nevertheless, hope you enjoy your extra February Day.
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