“Love is patient, love is kind. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

As we leave January, the first snowdrops give us hope for Spring ahead. But in the UK, Spring is rarely just around the corner. February can feel like a long stretch of rain, with only the most marginal change in light between morning and night. In that weather, Valentine’s Day may feel oddly placed. It arrives each February 14th with its promise of brightness, as though the landscape should match that first flush of love. Though, recently, I have started to wonder if the gloomy weather serves as a reminder to challenge the traditional Hallmark depicted moments of love, and appreciate the more seemingly mundane acts that show us love each day in unexpected ways.

One Saturday morning I was returning from an errand and stopped to watch a Labrador bounding after a ball. The sky was leaden and the pavement slick, but the dog’s happiness was unmistakable. It was also infectious. That ordinary scene made me think about love in a wider sense. Not romance, not possession, not proof. Something simpler, and harder. Attention.

Iris Murdoch described love as “the imaginative effort to understand the uniqueness of another person”. She places love not in the ego, but in the movement away from it, in the willingness to look properly at someone else. That effort widens the world. It pulls us beyond performance, and toward the reality of other lives.

For many people, Valentine’s Day carries loneliness in its wake. Whether we ignore it or notice it, the day can underline what is missing, especially if we are without our own special “Valentine”. Perhaps with our understanding that loneliness is more prevalent despite our superconnected world, that this day could be one where we look to make that extra gesture, like opening a park gate, waiting patiently for others to pass on a crowded street or note to think of giving up our seat on a bus or train, not because of an obvious marker such as age or pregnancy but simply having the perception to maybe notice an unseen need, but one such as love is just felt.

If we widen our attention, love begins to look less like a transaction and more like a practice. It can still include romance, flowers, and chocolate, of course. But it can also look like small acts that sit outside the conventional script. We do not have much direct recourse in shaping global events, but we do have recourse in our daily lives. We can choose to look outward rather than only inward. We can hold a thought for the other, including those we do not know.

The difficulty is that modern life does not reward slowing down. Most days move too fast. We keep pace, we keep going, and we forget to look up. Over time, we become disconnected from our surroundings. The bigger questions, love, community, attention, get pushed to the edges. Yet love in its wider sense can start without drama. It can begin with noticing.

When I need help returning to that state of attention, it is often the inviting flame of a Charnwood stove that does it. Fire has a way of removing the ego. It asks you to stand still. To tend. To wait. It reminds you that warmth is not instant, it is made, and maintained. In that quiet work to prepare a fire there is something of a close analogy to love. Practical, steady, tender.

February, with its long grey and seemingly endless wet days, does not deliver hope in grand gestures. It offers it in small ones. Snowdrops appear without notice, simply directing us towards spring, in a gentle and delicate way. Perhaps love is like that too. Not always bright, not always performative, not always obvious from the outside. Often it is the quieter work of attention. To observe, to see, to turn our gaze outward, and to act with kindness toward the other, including the strangers we share the air with. In that sense, love does not always arrive all at once. It returns quietly, and asks us to look.