The first time I heard Mama's Gun by Erykah Badu I needed a fix. My spirit was suffocating, and I was in search or something which spoke in a voice that shared with mine. As the songs came from the speaker, I smiled, cried, and sighed a peaceful sigh. Every song spoke to my soul, I felt as if it was a river of reds, blues and oranges where the ancestral spirits met to rejuvenate the weak and searching of this realm. Like she sang on Didn't Cha Know, I felt as if I had made a wrong turn and had to find my way. As she sang about the penitentiary, I thought of a friend who got thirty for a crime he didn't commit. Like Kiss Me On My Neck, I recalled a morning after waking from a bad dream and looking out of the window wishing someone would come up from behing me and it would be okay. I was lonely like her, I needed to leave my town like her, my eyes were green. But most of all, I felt like the sun in Orange Moon, and wished through tears that I would find my moon. Oh, how beautiful that song is! And through it all, I just thanked God that someone understood my growing pains. As I listen now, the music takes me to a place that simply lets me fly in a safe, warm aura where all is well, and finally I'm smiling again.