I have been to Cloud’s Rest. Today a strong wind is blowing off the water, and I’d like to say the wind lifted me off the living room floor, carried me fourteen blocks and set me down on the green carpet amid the blond wood furniture and the fountain sounds and the tissue boxes. In a way the wind did carry me, because today something of extraordinary difficulty suddenly became easy. Or as they say at Cloud’s Rest, We do what we can, when we can.

The situation: I have a bad back. Probably this has something to do with rowing. Being a rower is sort of like being a human can opener. Your legs are the force, and your torso is the lever, and your arms are hooks, and the oar is the metal loop thingy, and the water is the top of the can, and you pry, pry, pry, with every stroke. (Ok, that was pretty bad. Just watch the big twins in The Social Network.)

Anyway, the torso-lever needs to be strong so it doesn’t collapse into lactic embryo position in the second half of the race. To keep it strong, our coach had us do this exercise circuit called the Iron Girdle. Or maybe the Iron Corset. Anyway, it had a medieval and wicked sounding name and it did not produce the kind of smoothacious abs you see on the cover of Self magazine. These were mighty, mighty abs, and we were mighty ab-havers. I want to say we were the human versions of Zenyatta, but a) that would imply we won a lot and b) I just looked at some pictures of her and they make me want to cry. I have lots of thoughts on Zenyatta, maybe for another post.

Anyway! The problem with the iron girdle is you can’t take it off, and if you don’t continue to do fifteen varieties of crunches x 1000 reps x three days per week it just sort of shrinks and softens until you are left with ol’ bandy waist. And then the little vertebra who were used to being so firmly yet gently held, so well parented, by the back and abs, go squoosh, and you start to walk around all monkey-arms-droop-chin, and then you get a bulging disk.

This disk of mine, this pal, this traitor, this poor soul, this derelict, this criminal, this orphan, has been bulging for about ten years. Most of the time if I walk a lot and do my dead bug exercises (lie on back, flail limbs) I’m ok, but lately, not ok. Lately much wallowing in the twin dark pools of pain and self-pity. And, for the longest time, I would not go see a doctor.

Here’s why, I think. While this pain is most certainly happening in my spine, it does not feel like part of me.  I feel bedeviled by it. I mean, I buy the whole abs-turned-to-suet medical narrative, but what my superstitious heart suspects is that this is an evil visitation– not a punishment, but a test. The demon has landed on me, and if I wait long enough, if I endure, it will fly away again.

But why not fight? What if the demon is laughing and rubbing his leathery hands together because I thought they also serve who only stand and wait, but they totally don’t! They get served!

So I took up arms. I called the doctor. I called the nurse. I called the lady with the alligator purse. And today I went to Cloud’s Rest Healing Center. My top general is tiny and gentle and wears beads and soft purple fabrics, but she did shoot some kind of laser into my back and tapped me with some kind of wooden mallet. These, and her hands, seem like the right weapons to drive the demon out. It all seemed like magic.

But here’s the real reason to go to the doctor, whatever kind you choose: the doctor sees other people just like you, all day long. Stuck at home on my back, I’d started to take on the pattern of the rug. The pets stepped on me and over me. They did private pet things in front of me they don’t usually do. It was like I wasn’t there, but I was there!

Cloud’s Rest restored my authority (ok to fight!) and my humanity (ok to suffer). The whole place is designed to treat people with exactly my problem. All the plants and the fountain and the foam rollers and the cushioned benches — all for us! The clean old carpet, the crumpled paper cups. That place has been there since the 80′s. There aren’t enough demons in hell.