On the Shelf – 8/27

Reimagining the Year

Albert Einstein once said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination”. Our community has two institutions whose specialty is both knowledge and imagination: the Downieville School and the Downieville Public Library. So, this week, let’s take a journey of the imagination through the year. I invite you to imagine with me how the year might look, if it were organized differently than what we currently know.

As you know, in our current calendar, the year is composed of 365 days (366 in a leap year), divided into 12 months. Seven of those months have 31 days, four months have 30 days, and one month has 28 days (29 in a leap year). Of those months, 4 are named for Roman gods, 2 for Roman emperors, 4 for Latin numbers, 1 for a Roman ritual, and 1 for a Roman season. In other words, all have a Latin basis.

But, let’s get to imagining some other possibilities for the annual calendar:

(1) Why should February be continually short-changed? How about shifting one day each from January and March to February? Thus, the calendar would then have five months of 31 days and 7 months of 30 days. In a leap year, we would go ahead and let February have that extra day, as a reward for all these centuries of being shorted.

(2) How about a year with only four months, each one being a season of the year. Thus, Winter would extend from the winter solstice until the day prior to the spring equinox; Spring would extend from the equinox to the day prior to the summer solstice; Summer would extend from the solstice to the day prior to the autumn solstice; and, Autumn would extend from the solstice to the day prior to the winter equinox. For the current year, that would mean that Winter would consist of 89 days, Spring 93 days, Summer 93 days, and Autumn 90 days. In leap year, the extra day would be added sometime during Winter. Of course, with the equinoxes and solstices not fixed on a specific date, the lengths of the months could vary from year to year. What fun!

(3) Or, maybe we want to get away from months of varying lengths (which happen under all of the previously considered configurations). There is one way to do that. Let’s create an annual calendar composed of five months, each consisting of 73 days. And, since so many different languages today are based in Latin, let’s go ahead and use Latin names for these months. Thus, the months would be named, in order, Primum (first), Sorec (second), Tertia (third), Quartum (fourth), and Quinto (fifth). Of course, there is always that pesky extra day in leap year, which we would add at the end of Quinto. Ah, but where to begin this year? Unless someone can come up with a better idea (probably not difficult), I would suggest keeping it exactly where it is now: starting the new year on what we currently call January 1.

There may be other calendar configurations that come to your mind. How would you rearrange the year, if it were up to you?

But, let’s go back to where we began — with the quote by Albert Einstein. I didn’t give you the entire quote earlier. And, I think the entire thing is worth knowing: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”

I encourage you to give your imagination — your curiosity — its freedom. Play around with possibilities. Explore. Invent. Create. And, if you need assistance, go to the places that are designed to help ignite the imagination. Go to the school. Go to the library.

Poetic Imagination

A couple of weeks ago, I extended to you an invitation to join me in creating a poem: “Rural Life Is…”. The invitation still stands: use your imagination and your knowledge of living in a rural community in this endeavor. And, as before, here is an example of how the poem will be formatted:

Rural Life Is…

…when you allow two hours for a five minute walk to the post office

…where you wave at every car you pass because it’s probably someone you know and if not…oh well…

…where you know all the mileposts on all the highways and county roads

That’s the idea. I invite you to send me your poetic imaginings at downiepaul46@gmail.com (use “Rural Life” in the subject line).