Leap Day is a once-every-four-years astronomical anomaly in the calendar, meant to sweep up the few extra minutes accumulated over the intervening years and set the calendar straight again. It happens to coincide with our presidential election years and I’m sure is a pain for people born on this particular day. When do they celebrate?

For those of us who love (and perform) the Gilbert and Sullivan body of works, we know the plots are always silly and the characters are culled from a standard repertory format. For over 100 years, the definitive performances were done by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company of London (as depicted in “Chariots of Fire”). But they are enjoyed and performed all over the world.

One of those famous operettas, “The Pirates of Penzance” takes place along the cliffs of Cornwall in southwest England, where the beautiful daughter of the Major-General, Mabel, is in love with Fredric. (Yes, “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” comes from this operetta.) However, Fredric is apprenticed to a group of pirates until his 21st birthday which is quickly approaching. Since he is a good, dutiful Brit, he is honor-bound to fulfill that apprenticeship, much as he hates being a pirate. He will come of age in a matter of days, then can lead a virtous life and marry Mabel, until it is revealed that he was born on LEAP DAY! So he won’t come of age until he is 84 and must continue to stay with the pirates! Finally, the old woman who was his guardian confesses that she is hard of hearing, misunderstood the arrangement and Fredric was really supposed to be apprenticed to a PILOT (on a ship)! Problem solved, silly but satisfying for all and lovely music.

My brother played Samuel, the Pirate King’s lieutenant, at the National Music Camp in 1965. That was my first exposure to the show.

Long a favorite of G&S fans, in 1981, Joseph Papp decided to stage a version of it with popular stars and invited Linda Ronstadt, Rex Smith and Kevin Kline to star in it on Broadway, to much acclaim. Two years later he turned it into a well-received movie so it is preserved for all to see; the winsome story of the lass who loved a pirate, born on Leap Day.

 

 

I’m a planner. 

Like to have all 

Potentialities acknowledged,

Surveyed, and appropriate

Responses in hand and heart.

 

So growing up I 

Knew I was a teacher.

The evolution of 

Who I was teaching all 

Neatly corralled in the

Pen of possibility I 

Keep stocked with vigilance

 

My storybook love

With a soul mate,

And how our relationship

Matured as we did,

My plans always held us

Aging together as we 

Journeyed this ocean of uncertainty 

That is life in partnership.

 

I knew I was to be a mom

And prided myself for not

Only staying on track

Most of the time,

But even rolling with the 

Quirks, circumstance and dynamics

Of family life-

embracing the challenges,

Because playing whack a mole

Is just part of the deal.

And the richness was the

Delicacy I craved.

 

I envisioned a remarkable senior hood

Of service and passion

Continuing my spiritual exploration

Amidst more spare time to 

Art

To Love

To Connect

To Revel.

To savor and enjoy

The pieces of life that didn’t

Quite fit in my daily plans

While in my years of prime energy.

 

However, life knows

Goodness knows, 

Love knows, 

That the universe has a wry sense of

Irony.

The sweet carpet of my ordered life

got swept out from under me

I spiraled through 

Illness

Divorce

More illness

My Daddy dying

My mama dying

Disabling illness

Grandparenthood without

The abundance I had foreseen.

 

So, I am here now with 

Tattered plans in hand

Realizing that I can either 

Keep kicking and paddling

Upstream toward

What feels like was

my life

Or pick up my feet and

Float toward a closer

Identity

And personal painful pushes

To see beyond 

The limited vision

Of my expectations

Parlez-vous Francais?  

When I retired after my long and happy career as a New York City high school librarian I had many options.  I could apply for a waiver and return to work part-time at a city school, sharing the week with another librarian as some colleagues did.  I could apply to the public library for a position.  I could try my skills in the private section.  I could join the Peace Corps and run a library in a country were libraries were scarce  and sorely needed,  as one admirable friend did.

I considered but rejected them all – as much as I loved being in the library world,  I felt I’d been there and done that.

Then I thought I might pursue my earliest dream of a life on the stage and audition for a neighborhood theatre company.   I could no longer play an ingenue,  but surely there would be some roles out there for a seasoned,  older woman!  But I rejected that idea too.

But one thing I had always wanted to do was to speak French.  My husband Danny is an excellent linguist and speaks French beautifully.  His Hungarian-speaking mother and his German-speaking father met and married in Paris in 1937,  and two years later fled Europe for South America on the cusp of World War ll.  They took their common language – French – with them,  learned Spanish in their new Bolivian home,  and Danny learned both languages as a child.

It happens I studied French in both high school and college,  but I must admit I’ve always spoken it poorly,  or as Danny would unkindly tell me, “Tu parles francais comme une vache espagnole.”  – you speak French like a Spanish cow.

So now that I was retired I was determined to finally master that beautiful tongue and enrolled at the renown Alliance Francaise.   I studied there for an academic year,  and the following summer went to France for a language immersion experience with my teacher Marie-France,  and Tricia, Janeen and Deborah,  three lovely women from our class.

We had a fabulous time with lots of laughs and adventures, and of course great food and lots of wine.   My vocabulary increased,  and I mastered more French grammar,  but my ear and my pronunciation –  toujours terrible!

So even now when I speak French to my husband,    “Il m’ecoute comme une vache espagnole.”  – he listens to me like a Spanish cow.

– Dana Susan Lehrman