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It's not the light through my window that arrests me. It's the scene outside. Strong midwinter sun, dazzling on the clean snow, making vivid shadows for the naked trees. I take my time, drinking in all of the details. I want to make sure I can remember what this looked like.

When I first sat down here early this morning, the bottom of my window was frosted in one of the lovely patterns ice forms from the moisture trapped between the panes, and everything visible outside my window was coated in hoarfrost. That's the winter entertainment on the Hudson River.

On the mornings when it's truly cold — below zero — I take a different route to work than the one I normally navigate, one that takes me south along the river's edge for 15 miles or so. This takes approximately twice as long as my normal trip, but in those spots where the river's open, huge plumes of steam rise up from it, and the hoarfrost in these places is absolutely spectacular, glittering in the sun and making the bare tree limbs achingly beautiful.

Ordinarily, I don't have the patience for this commute. It's slower and more congested, and doesn't spare me the consciousness I need to plan out the day ahead or chew on a solution to my latest personal dilemma. But on mornings like these, the wonders on display supercede anything I may need to consider.

I remember mornings like this from my early childhood, when my mother would take me outside, belt me to a Flexible Flyer and pull me down the road to the mailbox. I remember my nostrils sticking together, the stinging of my cheeks in the cold air, and the itch of the wooly scarf tied around my neck. I remember being so bundled up in heavy winter clothing that it was difficult to move; I remember my mother's good-natured laughter as I tried to walk clumsily back into the house.

I will miss the small moments like the view out my window this morning the most, I think, when my gift of eyesight is gone at last. Yesterday afternoon my doctor told me that I was beginning to lose my vision to complications of diabetes, as my mother and grandmother did before me. I'll have to remember to ask my mother this afternoon if she can still recall in her mind's eye the things she can no longer see.