This year February felt so long that one day when I was bemoaning the weather patterns I looked at a calendar and realized it was actually March 15.

“How did that happen?” I wondered. There I was trying to figure out how to pay the February bills and low and behold a new month was well underway.

Just before the second storm of March, which was for me the fifth storm of February, I was reading a book by Pat Schneider about writing (I need all the help I can get) and in it she tells the story of a Rabbi revered for his praying technique who discovers there is a man who is revered even more than he is. The Rabbi goes to meet the man, an unassuming worker, and discovers the other’s method.

“I only have 10 letters,” the man said. “So I ask God, I say, God, take these letters and make a word that smells nice to you.”

What is demonstrated in this story is the power of words, of letters. After contemplating the story and watching the Weather Channel for days, feeding the wood stove and wondering if I would make it through February, now discovered to be March, I realized what was happening, why me and my friends were so deluged. I realized that I in fact was the culprit.

You see it’s like this, I have never been able, nor willing I dare say, to pronounce the first R in February. I say Feb-u-ary, not Feb-ru-ary. It just seems more right somehow, and it has always engendered a low level of disdain when I hear someone else pronounce the ‘Ru’. Radio hosts in particular.

I don’t know why, it is just so. It seems haughty somehow. Maybe it comes from a working class background. My Dad was from Boston so maybe I have inherited some gene against the letter r.

In the Bible great calamities are caused by individuals, and I now saw that I had caused this calamity in my community. I began to wonder how I could make up for my errors which have caused such consternation among my peers who make their living outside in the winter, or the homeowners snug in their dwellings dreaming of how nice it will be to show up in the early spring to see all the work completed. Yet another scenario is more likely.

“Sorry lady, it’s not quite done yet.”

“Why not, you said it would be done!”

“Well lady, we had a long Feb-u-ary.”

“What do you mean? Feb-ru-ary was only 28 days!”

“Well, they were long days ma’am.”

I realized I had to do something to make things right. I had years of mispronunciations to atone for, so out into the world I went, across the street to Alley’s, up to the clerk.

“Hey, do you happen to have any magazines from Feb-ru-ary?”

“No, sorry sir.”

Then I went to the library.

“Hi, I was wondering, do you have any books about Feb-ru-ary?”

“No, sorry sir.”

Everywhere I went, every chance I could, I would say the word: Feb-ru-ary, Feb-ru-ary, Feb-ru-ary. I told stories to some friends about Feb-ru-arys gone by and to others dreams of Feb-ru-arys to come.

I have also substituted my usual prayer with a new one as I begin to doze off. It is a prayer to ask the God of letters to release me from the bondage of the suffering I have caused. Part of my prayer is to the month of Feb-ru-ary itself, to ask it to turn the last days of March into an early and warm April. Lets hope it works.