Strength, love, and rock n roll: Melissa Etheridge talks about learning the lessons of cancer: seek balance, practice love, and put out a rockin' greatest hits CD while you're at it.

"Our ever after," reads the sign outside the hilltop home of the Etheridges--Melissa, Bailey, Beckett, and Tammy Lynn. Across the manicured yard a couple of workers putter around the porch. Coming closer, I realize it's the ladies of the manor, Melissa and Tammy. In jeans and a polo shirt, her short hair in an unpretentious thatch, Etheridge leads me into a high-ceilinged home like a cowgirl's storybook castle. In the living room we sit down to talk beneath an artist's rendition of the poster from Thelma & Louise, hypercolored as a Western sunset. On the other wall hang guitars, the childhood kind with cowboy scenes stenciled on in white. One is even a Harmony, like the first guitar little Missy Etheridge of Leavenworth, Karl., picked up when she was 8.

It's been a year since Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer. She's recovered, and life is rich. Personally there's happiness with her wife, Tammy Lynn Michaels. Professionally, cancer and recovery have brought an onrush of new and wider fame. Her dynamic new album, Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled, ends with "I Run for Life," commissioned by Ford Motor Co. for the Race for the Cure. She's headlining Women-Rock! a breast-cancer awareness special airing October 18 on Lifetime. She's in Vons and Safeway stores as the face of a Kimberly-Clark campaign benefiting cancer concerns. It all started, of course, with her gutsy, glorious bald rendition of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart" at February's Grammys. That night Etheridge showed the world "that a woman can be tough"--and that a lesbian rocker could reach past prejudice and melt the heart of America. The acclaim redoubled her fierce new sense of purpose. "I will tell people often that I look on my cancer as a gift," Etheridge says. Here's why.

It's been almost a year since you were diagnosed, hasn't it? Are you putting your CD out on the same day you got your diagnosis?

No, no. Actually ... oh, my God. It's the same week.

Were you planning a greatest hits collection already?

Yeah, I was. We were just winding down from Lucky [her last CD, DVD, and tour] when my manager at the record company approached me. Because "Oh! A greatest hits"--that's not a thought one has.

So this takes on a really special significance.

I couldn't think of a more perfect time to put out a greatest hits than a very huge mark in my life, with the cancer and the awakening to "Life is really serious--I need to focus a little more." I can say, "This is what I have done in the past 20 years, and oh, what a trip, what a ride. Now I'm on to the next 20."

Now that you're well, we all want to ask about your experience with cancer. Please let me know if we're getting too personal.

The experience of going through this, of cleaning out my life--the chemo is like a plunger for your body and your soul. I just took that approach to everything. It's like, "For heaven's sakes, let me toll my experience, let me be the one everyone saw get sick and get well. Let's get the mystery and the weird, shameful stuff out."

How did you find out? You were out on tour?

I was in Canada; I'd just had a physical before my European tour that summer, and there was nothing. And in two, three months, one day I looked down and there was just a big lump. I thought, How come I didn't see this yesterday? Tammy remembers a few weeks before that, when we were intimate, she was like, "What's that?" I said, "Oh, just a cyst."

Did you go to a doctor right away?

Oh, yeah. I came home on a Saturday and had Tammy look at it, and she went, "Holy cow!" I went to the doctor on Monday, and by [the next] Saturday I was in surgery.

Did you go into surgery thinking you might come out with a mastectomy?

No, the doctor said she definitely would not do that. She said, "If you decide on a mastectomy," she would go back and do it. All she was gonna do was get a lump out, because she was not a hack-'em-off doctor. And of course, me, I'm like, "Got 'em off of me! I don't need 'em!" [Anne laughs] I was finally ready to not have to carry them around anymore! But I knew I wouldn't come out like that.

What did you expect?

When you do go under, there's so much you don't know. You wake up and go, "OK--what is it?" [This cancer] was four centimeters, and the sentinel lymph node, where the cancer goes first, was positive. But they took the next 15 nodes out and they were clear. So the cancer had gotten on the on-ramp, but it hadn't gotten in the system.

Did you sort of know you were sick beforehand?

Well, looking back on it, I completely ... I was feeling run-down. I was feeling very acidic.

What do you mean, "acidic"?

Acidic [laughs]. That's my new word. During this whole trip, I discovered acid and alkaline in the body, which is basically where yin and yang came from, the Chinese medicine and the balance. Going through this, I realized how out of whack I was--acidic foods, acidic behavior, people I was around who were toxic. You know when you feel acidic--not only when you have an upset stomach, but you just feel wrong. I look back and I go, "Oh, God, I was really feeling that thing."

Sometimes it seems most of us feel that way most of the time. We're just run-down.

It's our Western lifestyle, the food that we eat. We work ourselves crazy, and relationships--forget it. All the toxic stuff, and the smoking. Yeah, horrible. And all the Diet Coke. I see people drink Diet Coke like it's water, or instead of water. Would you feed your plants Diet Coke? [Chuckles] No! Your plants will be dying the next day! 'Cause it's acid. That's where I divide ... I look at things now as acidic or not. Anything. Like choices. People. Food.

You're about to promote a new album--how're you gonna do that in an "alkaline" way?

[Laughs] I have my organization around me. I've had my manager for 23 years. The people that I work with, they know exactly what I need. My tour manager, who would always go with me through anything work-related, once I got the diagnosis, he just stepped right into the cancer tour. Oh, man--such love, he's like my brother. These are the people who set up things. So they know that I don't need to walk into any situation that could be acidic. They know how to get the food I need around me, that I need a base. I'm not all strict and crazy-weird, but there's a certain kind of salad with apple cider vinegar, and apple cider vinegar is very alkaline and really balancing, and I have some every day. Sea salt instead of table salt. Just little different things that I always have around me, [that help me] travel through whatever I need to do and come back.

How did you discover all this?

When I got chemotherapy. I've always had stomach trouble, with acid reflux. The only shows I've ever canceled before the cancer thing were when I had acid reflux and it just burned my throat and I got sick. When I got diagnosed and went on chemo--first chemo they gave me, it goes right to your stomach. Chemo is just acid in your body, and it kills every living cell you have and every dividing cell you have. So of course it wrecked my [gastrointostinal] tract. I was trying to eat bland foods, but I was still just burning, burning terrible.

Sounds awful.

Tammy came home from work one day [on the 2005 sitcom Committed] and said, "This woman just came up to me and said, Tell your partner: alkaline--and a cup of lemon water.'" I had gotten to the point where everything going in me hurt, so I said, "Honey, I'll try it. Ill try anything." I drank some, and I immediately felt relief.

That's the first time I've heard of that.

I know! We Googled "alkaline and lemon juice," and all this stuff on acid/alkaline diets came up. When you have more acid than alkaline, your cells start to break down, so the doctors say that all degenerative diseases--cancers, heart disease--come from the body having a lack of alkaline. At least since the 1930s, certain doctors have been saying, "We're killing ourselves because we're getting away from natural foods that come from the ground--fruits and vegetables are the most alkaline."

Eat your vegetables, right?

We just don't look at our foods---our food is way too easy and cheap. We've made food easy and cheap. And there's going to be more and more cancer; there just is. This is seriously bad stuff. So I've totally gone on the acid/alkaline thing.

Is there food that you miss, that you're homesick for?

Well, see, it's all about moderation. It's all about balance. Oh, my God, when I go out to dinner with Tammy to our favorite Mexican restaurant, I love chips and salsa--I want to have that experience, so the whole day before and the day after, I'm all alkaline, I get my body ready.

What was your first thought when you heard that you had cancer?

It didn't flatten me; I wasn't reduced to a pile of tears. I just got more perspective at that moment. My life got very small. It was not about my touring or my fans or my work. This, right in front of me, was something I needed to do personally, for myself.

It sounds like amazing new career things are happening for you through this journey. True?

Yeah! Like the experience of singing on the Grammys. I had sung twice before on the Grammys, but [this year] everything lined up to "Oh, this is a perfect time to step back onstage after going through chemo. Oh, I'm going to be bald--well, they'll just have to deal with that."

Nobody who saw you that night will ever forget it. Tell us the whole story! I'd been nominated [for Best Rock Vocal, for "Breathe"]. But I didn't want to just go and just be bald at the Grammys. Then I got a call, and they said, "They want you to perform. They're doing a tribute to Janis Joplin," and I went, "Well, holy cow, she's my hero." Then I started thinking, I would be so pissed off if I had to watch the Grammys and watch somebody else sing "Piece of My Heart." I've sung "Piece of My Heart" for 25 years. [Laughs] And it was singing with Joss Stone, who I respect very much as a musician. So I said, "Yeah, sure."

Did it introduce you to a whole new audience?

Yeah, it's like wow, man! NASCAR has asked me to go sing the national anthem at one of their events. It's like cancer knocked gay out. Now I'm no longer the gay one. [Laughs]

Yeah! People come up to me now ... It used to be just the sisters, and that was my core. And it still is--what would I do without my gay audience? But when somebody told me that their 80-year-old grandmother has breast cancer and is gonna go through chemo, and they mentioned wigs, and the woman said, "If Melissa Etheridge can go on the Grammys bald, I don't need a wig!"

That's wonderful.

You start realizing, whoo, it went that far, to Grandma World--now they're gonna see past the gay stuff. It won't stop at gay anymore. And maybe that's my job, to have the world think that they know a gay person, you know? And that they're OK.

Have you been speaking out in ways other than your music?

A biotech convention in Philadelphia asked if I would come and speak to them. I did, just to talk about cancer and chemo. Chemo is just barbaric--it hasn't changed in 30 years. Come on--we can do better than "Let's take the person as close to death as we can, and maybe they'll get better when they come back." That sounds like the Dark Ages.

It's a step away from leeches, Yes, exactly.

You also did something with MTVU, didn't you? I did this surprise health class, a medical class. Because before I had breast cancer I didn't know anything. Even though I'd lost my grandmother, I lost my father to liver cancer, lost my aunt. Cancer always ended in death. That was just the way it was in my family.

People learn about cancer from the movies, and characters get cancer in the movies only if they're supposed to be written out of the plot.

And that's so not the truth. Once I entered into that world, it's like, "Yes, you can still die, but most are living."

One thing I have to ask about the Grammys: If you hadn't looked so good bald, would you have hesitated a little more about performing?

[A challenging smile] Did I look good bald, or was it I looked good in truth? People say, "Oh, your head looks so good bald"--I think everyone looks good bald. There are some people who don't feel their truth in it, who are afraid of it, so they don't look good bald. Believe me--being bald is the easiest part of chemo. The easiest part, hands down.

Did you ever think of wearing a wig?

Never. When I first I met my surgeon, she said, "You'll have to have chemotherapy, and there's lots of good wigmakers." She just went on this wig spiel. And I was like, "Wigs?" She said, "Nobody wants to see anybody famous bald."

No ... wow!

She was an older woman, a surgeon respected as one of the finest. She'd seen so many people, and that was just her thought. And as I walked through it, people would keep coming up saying, "I've got a great wigmaker," and I kept thinking, I just don't see myself needing a wig.

But was it hard to lose your hair?

Tammy cut it short so we could get used to that first. The kids helped--they each cut a ponytail, and they each have the ponytail still. Then later we shaved it like a buzz cut, and then I held on to that until it actually started falling out and I started getting the patches. Tammy called me "Sergeant Patches" for a long time. [Anne laughs] Then she said, "Look, it's time to shave your head," and it was just her and I, and it was very hard.

How'd you come to be so OK with it?

When I first took a bath, the feeling of the water on my head was crazy. And Tammy looked at me and said, "Honey, you have to believe me, but you actually look very feminine and beautiful." She kept watering me with that--"You're really beautiful." So when I was called to step out in front of these people at the Grammys, I believed that I was beautiful. I could wear a jacket with a collar that accentuated my head and be confident that I was beautiful.

Can we talk about Tammy?

I can't help myself but to talk about Tammy. I couldn't have done it without her. She was the best, most loving, completely dedicated ... I lived for weeks in our bedroom, and she knew the days she couldn't make any noise because it's so painful that noise hurts. But even when she had to be completely still, when she couldn't watch television, even tap the keys on a computer--she would just sit and read and turn the pages quietly, just to be in the same room with me. And now there's nothing in the world that can come between her and I.

That must have been powerful.

When you go through something so big and you come out the other side, you sort of realize what life really is and what is important--it's cliches, but it's true: I need to focus in on my children and on my heart and myself.

Let me just ask one question about Julie Cypher. [Melissa squawks, mimes being shot, falls back on couch.] You must have had a conversation with her about how she would deal with the kids through this experience.

How can I say this? [Pause] My experience with my ex has consistently gone downhill since our breakup. Finding out things, getting far enough from it to look back and go, What was that? It's not anything I can talk about now. Yeah--that's one of those toxic things I was talking about.

Well, then, back to an alkaline thing: Tammy--

[Laughs] Tammy! Alkaline! All alkaline!

You're talking about having kids now.

We are thinking about it. I mean, there's talk when you sit around with your partner and go, "Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have kids someday," and then there's "Let's look at our schedules--is this something we want to do?" That's where we were at before the diagnosis. Now we're starting to talk about that again.

What else have you made time for that you postponed before?

I've been taking more time off for myself, my life, my love. Tammy and I took an RV trip this summer. It was so much fun! I mean, I've toured every summer since 1988 pretty much, but I drove the 34-foot RV and Tammy decorated it. She has a way of touching things and turning them into home. We drove from here to New York and took Rosie's R Family cruise--which was amazing. Then we got back in the RV and drove home. We were gone for six weeks. We'd go everywhere from a gay RV park in the Poconos in Pennsylvania called the Woods-mostly gay boys, and they had their RVs all decked out! [Anne laughs] And then we'd go down to Tennessee, 'cause we wanted to go to Dollywood, and it's a whole completely opposite end of the world--good ol' boys.

Did people recognize you?

They'd go, "You look a lot like that Melissa Etheridge." We were definitely in the red states... the churches are really prevalent with the big billboards and stuff--it's like, holy cow. We had a couple waitresses who didn't wait on us. They didn't know it was me, because fame always trumps gay. But when it's just Tammy and I, and me looking kind of like I do, they assume. And we can't help but call each other "honey," because we're used to living in L.A. So we had a couple of those. We would just leave. The waitress who did wait on us, we'd leave a $100 tip.

Have you written any music about having cancer?

It's funny--I've always written about what I've gone through. It's just that my first three or four albums, nobody knew what I was going through, so they were just songs. But by my sixth album-right around Breakdown--people started to realize, "She really is writing about what she knows." The next thing I write, of course it will be all flavored with the experience of cancer. I've been jotting down, and things have just been flying out of my head; it's very inspirational right now. But people will be able to listen and comprehend the colors I'm painting with, because they'll understand that it comes from the cancer. Not the cancer, but the experience.

How do you feel about that term "cancer survivor'?

I think it gives cancer a lot more power than it really has.

You're "battling it," and if you die, you "lose your battle"--

Yes, exactly. I remember when the cover of People came out, I had just gone through the week of discovering it, going in for surgery, and it's taken out, and my margins were clear, which means my cancer's gone. So by the next week I'm cancer-free and I'm just healing from the surgery. I'm up and around and I'm doing things, and the cover of People magazine comes, and it's "Melissa battling cancer."

We did that at The Advocate too.

I didn't mind it--but I thought, You know what? This is how we communicate with people. It's "her brave struggle," and I thought, Well, how brave was it to get my cancer cut out? The thing I'm going to be bravest about is not the chemo or the cancer. The thing I'm going to be brave about is, "I'm going to make a choice to change my life." That doesn't mean that people should read this and hear me saying, "If you get cancer again or if you die from it or your loved one dies from it [it's your fault]," I don't ever want to say that. I don't want people to say, "Oh, Melissa's one of those people who thinks you bring cancer on to yourself."

Are you one of those people who think you bring cancer on to yourself?.

[Smiles] Yes, I am, but it's not from a victim-y place. It's choices-I've known the choices I've always made. Your whole life is spent learning why you made those choices and how to make them different in the future. [Pauses] I remember talking about my dad in an article 13 years ago. I said, "He had liver cancer, and I thought it was because he was such a sweet man, he was such an amazing man, but he never showed his anger, and he never talked about it. And the liver is where you process [anger]--"

Do you still think that's true?

[Pauses] Yes, I do. But I got a lot of flak from that, people going, "She's one those people who think you bring cancer on yourself." I think our whole society, this whole reality that we agree to wake up to every day--we bring all of it on ourselves. But people have their own journeys, and I only know what I know from me. That's all I can speak for.

So for you now, brave means willing to change.

Yes. That's brave, to say, "I'm never going back to the place that gave me cancer." I'm going to step out of my old life. I'm going to stop giving and giving and giving--and people are going to go, "That's not you, that's not you at all." And people are not gonna like me, but heaven forbid that the point of my whole life is for everyone to like me. They know that you can die from cancer, and so they say you're battling- the cancer. But what you're battling is the cancerous behaviors. Are you going to stop and truly make a change and just go, "I believe in me"? That's brave.