Melissa The Second Time Around (Warning: Long Post)

Last night I went to my second and final Melissa Etheridge concert of the summer. It was at MGM Foxwoods in Connecticut and I went with my fabulous Aunt K. I wasn't quite so blown out of the water by Melissa's spiritual and emotional awareness this time as I knew to expect it. Instead, I really enjoyed her playing and the energy of the crowd.

MGM Foxwoods is quite an experience. It opened about a month ago and is huge and rather surreal. There we were, driving through the bucolic New England farms when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there were two giant skyscrapers of casinos towering up out of the fields. It is really quite a disconcerting, jarring sight. I didn't get much of the casino experience other than walking through it. The smoke made it hard for my aunt to breathe and having never gambled in my life I didn't have much interest in it.

One of the best parts of going to a Melissa concert for me is the crowd. My ex (the emergency clinic graveyard nurse-- I haven't come up with a good alias for her yet other than M) said that going to a Melissa concert is like going to a lesbian convention and that is so true. A lesbian convention unlike an Indigo Girls or Ani or Melissa Ferrick show because the lesbians are older and middle-aged, mostly coupled, quiet, mellow. It's a more peaceful, content feel than the younger crowd.

It's always affirming to me to be in a setting where the majority of people are lesbians. I tried to explain this to my aunt, and I think she kind of gets it. I relax a little, no longer feel invisible, and let my eyes wander freely over the beautiful women there (yes, checking women out is one of the pluses of a Melissa concert though most of them are obviously partnered).

This time I had the added pleasure of getting hit on a few times. Right after I arrived at the casino, a woman passed me and commented, "I have that shirt but it looks better on you!" I like getting noticed, who doesn't like that kind of positive attention, really? It has struck me this summer that I attract a lot more attention than I have ever before in my life. At first I thought it was DC, but then I gradually realized the change was not in location or cultural, but in me. I don't think I look any different than I have in my life, same haircut, perhaps slightly girlier clothes, and though I am in decent shape it's not like I'm ripped or have a six pack. So if it's not my looks, what is it? I think it must be my energy. My aunt agrees. In college I was depressed a lot of the time, downright miserable some of the time. When I was married I was isolated by my controlling husband, and still depressed. Having come out a second time, feeling free of the shackles of marriage and like I have every opportunity in the world is such a high for me that I am full of energy. I'm more at peace with myself at thirty than I have ever been before, more hopeful for the future, more self-aware, more independent and more comfortable in my own skin. Somehow, all of these things must be conveyed in a glance in the way I carry myself and smile because, all of a sudden, people do notice me and I love it!

Back to the concert. Melissa played a fairly different set than the DC concert. The crowd up front brought a lot of signs with various comments and requests (Melissa remarked, "You folks do a lot of arts and crafts before the show!") They got her to change her set list and play a second song about her days in Leavenworth, Kansas-- "Nowhere To Go" (note for future: Melissa says she is a sucker for any concerted effort by people with signs in the front rows). It is my ex M's favorite Melissa song. I remember her explaining to me how it captured the feeling of being out in the woods with her high school best friend/crush/lover and how no one saw what they were doing and they were so out there, alone:

I know a place down past an old shack

On a road that goes to nowhere, ain't nobody coming back

We can go there tonight, we can talk until dawn

Or maybe something else, I'll leave the radio on

The radio on

There's no one to hear, you might as well scream

They never woke up from the American dream

And they don't understand what they don't see

And they look through you and they look past me

Oh, you and I dancing slow

And we've got nowhere to go

The loneliness of being gay in high school is such a universal theme, be it Kansas (Melissa) or California (M) or North Carolina (me). Amazing to finally hear this song live.

Melissa went through the trajectory of her life again, how she thought she knew about love back in high school ("but it was mostly drama"), talking about arriving in California in 1982 and not immediately getting a record deal ("Everyone was wearing spandex so they got noticed before me, but I wasn't going to wear spandex so I just waited"), doing "two week relationships," followed by an open relationship that made her miserable but made for great music, and then going after Julie Cypher. She talked about how it took her 10 years to realize that the relationship with Julie wasn't working, commenting "Some of us are slower learners than others!" That certainly made me feel better, as in retrospect it was obvious my marriage was unhappy from day one but it took me a few years to come to grips with that fact and get out of it too!

She spoke about how when she and Julie broke up she finally began to look inside herself-- "If it's not you that's the problem, then it must be me," and also the realization that she didn't have the power to change anyone else but herself ("I don't have an all-encompassing power to change you, just me!") These are lessons that I have learned the hard way too, and they are so simple yet so powerful and transformative. I think losing a great love rips you open in a way that makes change possible, makes it possible to look inside yourself and learn the lessons to try to prevent from ever being that destroyed by love again. As Melissa kept saying, "We live and learn, don't we?"

Losing M, who I loved more deeply and was more bonded to than any other adult relationship, was the impetus for me to look inside myself and take stock; her loss, in combination with my divorce, was the catalyst for intense personal growth.

Melissa talked about her own personal growth following her break-up with Julie. How the beginning of personal growth is pain. Facing the fear of being alone, "because even though we don't admit it, when it comes down to it we're all afraid on some level of being alone." How when she was alone she didn't eat well "ice cream, pop tarts, another pop tart, cinnamon on top, because, well, there is no one there to tell you that's not real food." And then, emerging from the pain, she "asked the universe for someone of my own persuasion, because that's just what's natural" (I think here she is referring a bit obliquely to the fact that Julie's sexuality was more heterosexual than lesbian and Melissa realized she could not change that about someone). How she wanted something stable this time around ("you'd better be very careful what you go after and make sure it is not just the chase, not just the drama"). And then her friends dragged her out to the bars, and she was nervous and wary of meeting someone else straight, and told herself she was just looking to have fun when one night a beautiful woman came in-- "I thought she was straight but we were in a gay bar..."-- and this woman asked her to dinner ("no one had ever asked me to dinner before") and so she put her number into her phone and the rest is history. She has found her true love, her happiness, and she says it is amazing. I love the song about her initial confusion over Tammy's straight looks, how Tammy passes as straight (my ex M said this song always reminded her of me so I like it even more)-- "Secret Agent:"

Smooth as cream

She's every young boy's dream

She's like a hot roller coaster

On a video screen
She's off the hook, take a look

Let your imagination cook

She don't play by the rules

She don't go by the book

All the boys wanna know

If she's got something to hide

All the girls are relieved

She's working for the other side

She's a secret agent

You can believe it or not

Melissa talked next about her struggle with cancer, how it taught her about balance. That pop tarts are not a food. That when your body wants to sleep you need to listen and go to bed rather than working through it thinking "I can sleep when I'm dead because you will be dead and sleeping!" (oh man, that is one lesson I clearly have yet to learn as I have been more sleep deprived this summer than any other time in my life bar none), how it is healthy to reduce stress in your life. And why was she telling us all this-- "I want you to not get cancer!" I love how she tries to pass on the most important lessons of her life in a concert, even though she knows that these hard learned lessons come from going through the fire of pain and fear and cannot be easily conveyed, yet she still tries and does a terrific job of conveying them.

She talked about her awakening to the crisis in the environment, but by this time I was really fading fast, having gotten very little sleep this week I was no longer up out of my chair and dancing but slumped over trying to hang onto every word and not miss any precious moment of the concert. I didn't want it to end, but after three hours of continuous music I was exhausted, and surely Melissa must have been too!

I rallied for the encore, hoping she would play "Piece Of My Heart" again but instead she played "Like The Way I Do" which, while not quite as breathtaking, was still incredible. It's like she didn't want the show to end, she just kept playing and playing and rocking out. I loved it.

My aunt really enjoyed the show, for some reason I was worried it would be too loud or too late or too gay or something. She had some good observations of her own. She liked Melissa's comment about how when you are in your twenties "you can not sleep at all and just eat a candy bar instead," but how when you are older that is not possible (oh, I am not looking forward to the days everyone tells me are ahead when I won't be able to function on four hours sleep). My aunt also like how Melissa drew the crowd in, how personal her songs and story are, and how intensely she sang.

Well, I could go on and on. I hope she tours next summer, because if she does I will certainly be there!