How to look when it is starting to snow.
Do not look out directly when it is starting to snow, when it has just started to fall.
Do not make eye contact, do not make a sound. Only sneak occasional peeks from between the curtains of your large glass windows. With your hand, make a small peephole the size of your palm on the foggy window. Now look through it, quick glances like a thief. Look how softly it lands and gathers on the wet apple tree branches. Look at the white take over the night, branch by branch.
Snowfall at night in Vashisht, Himachal Pradesh, India. January 2022. Taken w iPhone 7.
When you have had a few looks, make sure that you are not sure of what you saw. You can’t believe you witnessed this other-worldly dance. Make sure you can’t believe your eyes or anyone else’s around you. In fact, pretend that it didn’t happen. Like when you see a silly crime on a Sunday afternoon and can’t be bothered.
This is how to look when it is starting to snow. So that it continues to snow. Because when it stops, it will be as if it didn’t happen. No amount of fallen snow will convince you of the last night: snow falling from the sky, endlessly for hours.