This blog was inaugurated with a Regina Spektor song.  I must share another one by her, and I’ll tell you why.

I don’t remember how old I was, but I must have been in junior high when the following occurred.  Our chocolate-trimmed white house sat on a corner in a north Minneapolis neighborhood, one known for crime and poverty, especially crime, but on this particular night it was snowing outside, and the streetlight made the otherwise dirty street look like it had just donned a diamond cape.  I stood in the darkened living room alone, looking out.  I don’t know where everyone else was.  [Being in a house of seven children and two adults, you’d think I’d know!]  Right about then, a song came on.  Now I’m not sure if it was on public radio, because certainly, we listened to that frequently, or if it was one of my Dad’s records.  I don’t remember ever hearing it again.  The song sounded like a Russian marching song sung by a men’s choir–raucous and mesmerizing–similar to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” sung by a men’s choir, if you’ve ever heard such a thing.  I remember thinking that the song matched the picture outside our window.

That episode has always stayed with me, for whatever reason.

So, it was two years ago when I first heard this song by Regina, and it had the same effect on me.  It brought me right back to that moment.  It’s been snowing all day here, and there’s a thick blanket of white layering each tree branch, each mound of grass.  There’s that quiet cathedral feeling to it all, that you are surrounded by so much beauty it actually causes a twang in your heart.