On Watching Snowfall from a Cafe

I’m holding a warm coffee, watching the first snowfall through the panelled windows of a cafe, and I’m struck by how incredibly captivating it is.

If you blur your focus, the snowflakes seem to pour down steadily, slanting their way towards the round. But if you watch each one for the few seconds it’s in the air, it drifts haphazardly, changing directions in Brownian motion. There’s a confused urgency to the way they spiral and bounce, as if they have no idea where they’re going, as if collision with the ground is as unanticipated as their sudden descent from the clouds.

An old woman walks past the window, white powdering the top of her uncovered hair. A man huddles by, his glasses flecked with melting flakes.

The hours have floated past and I haven’t touched my textbook – there’s too much in the way the snow sits on the tops of the tree branches like icing, the way the buildings turn into little marzipan houses, the way the windscreen wipers on the cars swipe furiously yet pointlessly against the constant fall.

I’m reminded of days spent walking among the vast streets in Warsaw, feeling like the expanse of white muffles the sense of other humans’ existences. And yet, when someone comes into sight, there’s a sense of camaraderie in the face of this blanket that slows the world. As the bells toll, a crowd gathers silently outside the church, each pausing in their own disparate lives, warming themselves for a moment with their shared humanity.

I’ve almost finished my coffee, and the drifts are beginning to slow. Footsteps mark the roads leading away from my panelled window, but it won’t be long before the remaining snowfall buries them. The cafe chatter fades back into focus and, picking up my textbook, I let the world outside my window go unwatched once again.