My first meeting with Melissa was in 1991 in Maine. I was newly born into the lifestyle that I have shared since. I had never heard of Melissa but all of my MAINE women friends knew her well and was proud to see one of their own making it big. Her CD that she was promoting was “Never enough “. The songs that she wrote in that CD captured my attention and my soul and I have followed her career since.

I remember driving down those lonely roads of Bangor Maine listening to her words resonating in my brain from this heart provoking CD. One phrase stands out to me when she is crooning to Ain’t it heavy “ I have a hole in my jeans that I only wanted to fade, I ‘ve been ripping out the seams someone else has made tonight” I remember feeling how unusual I felt in my new skin, looking in the mirror and not recognizing who I was. You see I had just left a marriage of 20 years to self actualize into the world of loving women. Here I was with long curly hair looking like I had always looked wife to Tony and mother to Scott and Todd. But who was I now….who was I letting go and who was I becoming. So, as I continued to stare in the mirror, each time, changing something, helping to bring my external vision of who I was seeing into being, with my internal vision that I was feeling. Every song on the CD brought something new to my consciousness on those back roads of Maine. That was the beginning of my journey, as a “lesbian” women, just as it was Melissa’s beginning as “Rock” star.

Well here we are in 2008 at her revival tour, in Clearwater Florida, and for the second time in my life I am listening to this woman who has come full circle with her self, her life and her music.
She came onto the stage a very different woman than the one that I remembered, she looked older, wiser and much more comfortable with herself. I guess that is what happens as we age, hopefully we become more accepting of who we are. If we do not certainly life lets us know. Life certainly let Melissa know, as she said so many times throughout her concert, "life’s experiences taught me how to listen to the silence". I remember realizing what was occupying my thoughts as I watched this ICON on stage. She reminded me again of myself at about two years after my battle with Breast Cancer, and then it dawned on me, Melissa was about in her third year of recovery. I knew instinctively now why she was dressed with loose comfortable clothing because you see I was there. In fact back in 1996 I was suppose to see Melissa for the second time in Boston with my friends but I could not make it because I was recovering from a very bad infection after my first lumpectomy. Two years later, three surgeries and Chemotherapy behind me, my body unrecognizable, I again looked in the mirror to see a very different Donna. Oh yes, that battle does change you, spiritually and physically.

As Melissa began to tell her story and with each milestone she interjected the music that she wrote at the time. I remember thinking how I knew what song she was going to sing with every story she told. It was as if I knew, at the time she wrote each and every song, where she was in her life. When her relationship ended she wrote songs of letting go and I shared in her pain and experience of moving on in my life, yet again.

Well it is not hard to know as a rock star’s life is never her own. Still with every song I would listen for those famous words, the words that would speak to my soul and help me to understand myself or my feelings and emotions and the path that I continued to share with this soul mate. You see Melissa and I were on the same path, I was a little ahead of her but not by much, we were kindred spirits, she holding messages for me in each and every song. It was no different this night. I listened with my heart on my sleeve as she crooned her poetry one song after another.

She spoke of her young arrogant days, how she was just pure crazy and just desperately lonely and how those two actions just produced a life full of impulsive decisions. As she is stating this her eyes are so expressive and one glimpses the youth in her day, all the while talking to her younger sisters, asking them to think and be aware of every moment.

She spoke of her marriage and its failure and why she thought this and once again she would bust into song reflective of that time in her life. God how I love this women, for her passion and understanding and tonight for something more……the ability to put herself out there, for her purpose and determination.

She spoke of her wife now who she felt was her soul mate and for the first time in her life she was not alone. Then she began to sing “I know I have loved you before” it was amazing the passion in which she sang that song. I was captured again by her, as I remembered how the many discussions that we our OC sisters had regarding this concept of soul mate and wished that each one of you were here, listening to this women profess her love for a women she felt she knew long ago. It was so moving as I sat there watching this declaration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbE_7FhN4y0

After 3 hours and 15 minutes of singing and talking it occurred to me that Melissa had come full circle. It was clear that this revival tour had a purpose for her, her message was clear. To awaken, do not let fear stand in the way of who you are and to believe. I realized then that Melissa and I again were on the same path. As I looked around me I saw my sisters who I came with, I realized that the short time that I had been here in Florida, I had once again, reconnected to my new life. A new life that began a year ago with the abrupt news, shortly after my arrival, that my 34 year old son had passed away. I thought I would not survive such news but here I am. Today is the one year anniversary of his death but life does go on whether we want it too or not and somehow if we are paying attention we reconnect.

So as I sit here with my sisters, Melissa begins to sing "what happens tomorrow", I turn to these women and ask them to stand with me. Together we stand holding each other forming a straight unbreakable line swaying to her music and I sang with her there that day… I believe, I believe, I believe and I do !!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUj0mnNtDi8