By 10 am yesterday, all doubt had been erased. Just a half an hour before, I felt sure I could see specks of white descending haphazardly outside our window, but I was also uncertain. Was I imagining it? Was my mind magnifying imaginary spots on the glass and making them appear like flakes? Two hours later, as I sat at my desk I could see the snow clearly infiltrating the horizon which was erased by the white-grey sky. By then it had already arrived at the stage of sediment, whereby layer upon layer of freshly fallen snow gets compressed upon a surface to swell in size, first at the level of centimetres, then inches, then metres.

The streets assumed a film of white and it felt like something miraculous, this descent, this performance of gravity, a subversive dance, because the snow flakes, when they are fully formed and whole, never seem to fall downwards so much as dance their way across the sky. It is never linear, like in the case of snow rain, when the temperatures are not ideal, and the snow quickly morphs into rain as it nears the ground. When the snow is sure of itself, when it’s below zero degrees, then they seem to spiral or float; and there’s a feeling of movement as well as suspension, even when they sit on leftover leaves or nestle upon the green of pine trees.