in 1983 I fell in love with the words of two people: Tennessee Williams captured my poet's heart, and Nanci Griffith captured my melancholy.

I was a student at St. Edward's Uni in Austin, Texas, and I had just seen Nanci on Austin City Limits singing "Daddy Said." At the time, I was in mourning for my dead father, departed some dozen years before but, still, I wept. "Daddy Said" spoke to me about my father like nothing ever had. I was able to embrace him and release him at once while listening to her sweet lyric.

Over the years, I bought every release Nanci had, but to my complete astonishment, no one I knew - ever - knew of her. No one.

Until several years later, in 1994, when I was flipping through the cd collection of a man I had only recently started dating. He had every Nanci Griffith album I had - and then some. More than any other reason, that's how I knew I could love him. We were married five years later, and five years on, he's still the most amazing thing that I've ever experienced.

Nanci Griffith has provided the soundtrack for much of my life, particularly the love affairs, big and small. I was so JEALOUS of my husband when he called me from Atlanta the summer of 1996, where he had gone to work on the Olympic news coverage, to tell me he'd just seen Nanci Griffith play at a high school stadium in Decatur, Georgia, in the rain, without shelter.

We will see Nanci play in a botanical garden setting in Atlanta, Georgia later this month. It will be our second Nanci concert together. Like the first time we saw her, I won't be wearing make-up, for I know I will be weeping throughout the evening, tears of joy and hopeless romantic heart breaking, and aching for:

1. Mary and Omie
2. Love at the Five and Dime
3. Gulf Coast Highway
4. Wing and the Wheel
5. Spin on the Red Brick Floor
and
6. Late Night Grande Hotel