I have a confession to make.
     I'm secretly in love with Leap Day.
     Madly, passionately, wildly in love with a short, lithe stretch of 24 hours that refuses to visit me more than once every 4 long years.
     At least it doesn't mind us appearing together in public.
     Unlike some days I could mention....

     I've pondered my rather one-sided attraction for this day at some length this afternoon.
     And I've come to a few conclusions.
     The main one being that I probably love Leap Day precisely because it is so rare.
     I mean, could you seriously imagine shacking up with an often wintry day for an entire year, let alone a lifetime?

     Which reminds me of something I once said in jest:
     "I love February so much, I could spend a whole week with it."

     As special as Leap Day is, I suspect that if I was able to run my quivering fingers over its minutes as often as twice a month, it wouldn't be more than a year or so before I was secretly counting those minutes as I went....

     Clearly, what's at work here is the Brigadoon Syndrome.  
     Ah, Brigadoon - that legendary Scottish village which existed for just one day every hundred years.
     How magical that ephemerality makes it!
     How much sweeter expiration dates make milk!
     Ok, bad example.  Very, very bad.  I love my milk even more than I love Leap Day, and the only thing that keeps me from going insane as I greedily guzzle my way to the bottom of another jug is the knowledge that another jug of the stuff will be coming, and then another, and yet another.  
     Indeed, "If a man's thirst does not exceed his ability to swallow, then what's a refrigerator for?" (to paraphrase the poet).  
     Let's move on.
     What we need to find is a better example that makes my point.

     Like the 17-year cicadas.
     Yes!
     Oh, how I adore these huge, bug-eyed, whining creatures which can cover every square inch of ground and line-drying laundry!
     How much easier it is to adore them knowing that it'll be another 17 years before they cover every square inch of earth and underwear again!
     Too bad we don't get them in this part of Ohio....
     Sigh.

     Blue moons.  Shooting stars.  The glimpsed smile of a stranger on a passing bus which - for some reason we'll never know - was consciously tossed our way without any possible ulterior motive.  Beautiful, rare, and unexpected events of short duration which counter the dull, plodding course our lives so often take.  Leap Day is kith and kin of all these sorts of special saving graces, if only because my poor memory simply does not allow my mind to conceive of it as a regular, highly predictable occasion....

     I think one of the reason I've come in recent times to loathe Christmas is because it is so mechanically predictable, coming as it does every single year.  And on the very same date every year, at that.  
     Easter, at least, wanders around a bit - a homeless holiday forever at the mercy of the moon.  What a joy it was to discover how Easter's date is calculated.  Although it wasn't all that long ago that I learned the explanation and hardly enough time has passed since for me to consider myself a master of the subject, I think Easter is officially defined as "The first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox."  How marvelous compared to "December 25th"!  And how I smile when I recall that Easter (heehee) is actually a pagan word!
     And you thought I might like Easter just because it's the one day of the year a grown man can go around wiggling his nose like a bunny without someone or other demanding an increase in the dosage of his medication?
     No comment.

     There have been times when Easter and Leap Day have indirectly inspired me to create my own special days.
     Color Day was my favorite one of those.
     It was a day that just popped up bright and gay against the white snows of late January - one never knew exactly when it would be.
     Even though it always was heralded by increasingly obvious signs.
     A bit of bright construction paper taped to the far corner of a wall.
     A hint of confetti on a string suspended from the ceiling above my bed.
     Each day, for a week or more before its arrival, the signs would increase and accumulate until even a first-year schoolteacher with lots on her mind couldn't help but notice Something Yellowishly Funny Going On.
     On Color Day itself, the signs reached their crescendo and a virtual riot of color ensued.
     No color was excluded.
     No hue was purposely left out.
     In fact, the hours were spent tracking down as many colors as we could find, followed by our hugging them tightly with our eyes - just so they'd know how much we loved them.
     Just so we'd remember the magic quietly residing in each one....
     
     Maybe someday Color Day will return.
     Maybe someday I'll also get around to observing French-Only Monday and Electricity-Free Eveningtide again as well.
     All I know is, it won't be before tomorrow.
     Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go cuddle with the remains of today....