February contains two holidays – Valentine’s Day and President’s Day, and, other than a monday vacation in honor of former presidents, Valentine’s Day is by far the most enjoyable. The theme is love. Wife, girlfriend, or just fellow world travelers, this love can be expressed in many ways. Cards of all sizes and shapes, gifts of jewelry or candy (especially chocolate – which I personally dislike), and many other ways in which love can be expressed. Taking my loved one to dinner is my favorite, usually with a card and a meaningful gift. (she already gets all of the chocolate that might appear). Watching a favorite Valentine movie also works – either in a theater or at home. I never think of flowers (since I dislike them) – they die fairly quickly, so the significance is totally lost for me. But all of these tend to brighten up the month and make life worth living.
February is also midwinter. When I was young it was always dark and gray and gloomy most of the time, and cold with unpredictable weather. Definitely a month to “get through” as quickly as possible and on into spring. Whether at school or at work, it is hard to dredge up the energy to focus on projects that take a lot of thought. An overactive imagination helps, but it can also blur your focus when dealing with the mundane. A fine line to deal with in February.
In southern California it is supposed to be the rainy season. Sometimes “it” doesn’t know this and we have a drought, like now. It can also get very dry also with the low humidity and become a dangerous fire season. The dry brush just waiting for a spark to appear from anywhere. When this happens we have thousands of acres waiting to erupt in flames that become out of control almost immediately and then it becomes necessary to pour water on them or some kind of fire retardant so that homes don’t get reduced to ashes. The whole water problem seems ridiculous to me because we are located right beside an ocean. Water is plentiful in an ocean. The only problem is that it is “salt water.” But we have had many decades to figure out how to economically remove the salt from the water so it can be used on land, and this hasn’t happened. There must be other priorities or agendae that have made this not happen. We also need to figure out a more efficient way to put out fires on a mass scale. Believe it or not, there is still much work to do in our society.
The other side of this coin is mudslides which happen after the fires have removed all of the vegetation, at which time we have heavy and extended rainfall which becomes raging streams of water that urgently seek the ocean, carrying everything in its path. We seem to be an area of extremes.
Musically, February has always seemed to be a time of planning. There is Easter and the summer months ahead with all of the festivities that require music which needs to be found, and arranged or composed for the groups that play for these events. For an instrumentalist all of these different groups and events become like a fugue of interwoven events where you change hats, or coats to fit the occasion. It is what makes “live” music exciting, and we love it!