On the day before Valentine’s Day, I got an early gift from Cupid. It wasn’t roses. Or chocolate. It was 34 degrees after a bitter, Arctic cold spell.
If you’re going to celebrate a thaw, you might as well mark it properly. I told Alexa to play “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles. The opening guitar came in bright and clean. No fanfare. Just lift.
“Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter.”
George Harrison wrote the song after skipping a business meeting for The Beatles — contracts, arguments and tension. The late 1960s were full of those meetings: discussions about Apple Corps, finances and management. The band that once made music in a rush of shared excitement was now spending long hours in conference rooms. So Harrison walked out and went to the home of fellow musician Eric Clapton.
He played hooky.
The two friends strolled around Clapton’s backyard gardens. Strumming his guitar as they walked, Harrison composed the melody for “Here Comes the Sun.” He wrote the song that John and Paul didn’t. For years, Harrison lived in the shadow of Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting partnership. With “Here Comes the Sun,” the dark horse of The Beatles finally got his due.
At one time or another, we’ve all been the dark horse in our lives. Someone else bolts from the gate while we’re still finding the stirrups. Eventually we step into a patch of sunlight and win our own race.
Harrison wrote “Here Comes the Sun” in April, the start of spring. For me, the late-winter thaw held out hope for a warmer season to come. Eventually. After weeks of single-digit temperatures, 34 felt tropical. Practically swimsuit weather. I stepped outside without my down coat snapped tight around my neck and half expected to see someone grilling.
For days, my dogs had conducted their business at record speed. Squat or leg up. Done. Back inside. No lingering. No sniffing tours of the neighborhood. In weather like that, every creature on the block adopts the same strategy. I walked with my shoulders up around my ears, eyes peeled to the ground, waiting for success so we could turn around.
The cold had turned our daily walks into something closer to emergency procedures. Our usual stroll had shrunk to a quick pivot out of the driveway. Sometimes we barely made it past the mailbox.
On days when the wind chill pushed the temperature below zero, we negotiated everything through the back door. Bella, bundled into her pink fleece jacket, stepped outside and did her business on the deck. Efficiency becomes a survival skill.
Then the forecast nudged upward. Finally above freezing. That morning, our usual five- minute survival loop turned into something extravagant. We rounded the corner. Then another. The dogs slowed down. So did I. It felt lazy in the best possible way. The air still carried winter, but it no longer felt hostile.
“Here comes the sun, and I say, it’s all right.”
The song doesn’t oversell the change. No confetti. No declarations. Just recognition.
Thirty-four isn’t summer. It’s simply not 9 (degrees).
Context does most of the work. After enough bitter mornings, we learn that a small mercy can feel extravagant. Thirty-four won’t win awards. It won’t break records. And you won’t find it on a Hallmark Valentine’s Day card — though, in February in Massachusetts, maybe you should. This year, it felt downright romantic.
Most of us never write a hit song. Instead, we play hooky by taking a walk, staring out a window, or lingering over coffee a little longer than necessary. Still, the instinct is the same. Now and then the best move is to step away from the noise and give your mind a little sunlight.
In the song, a shift happens, too. The rhythm changes in the bridge — sun, sun, sun, here it comes — and something in our bodies shifts with it. The melody climbs. Our shoulders drop. Our chest loosens. The day stretches wider.
On our way home from the walk, I lingered in the driveway long enough to make eye contact with a neighbor.
“Finally!” I said.
“You got that right,” she replied with a smile.
The calendar still read February. Valentine’s Day would arrive with its roses and chocolates. The snow still lined the yard. But the walk had doubled in length.
And somewhere between 9 and 34 degrees, my spirits had risen too. Not summer. But for a February day in Massachusetts, the sun had come.
Joan Axelrod-Contrada is a writer who lives in Florence with her two dogs. Sign up for her free newsletter — complete with links to bonus content such as music videos and fun facts — by emailing her at joanaxelrodcontrada@gmail.com.