Mind Over Back Pain

I previously mentioned my back went out a month or so ago. I’ll tell you the whole story, as it is less painful for me now. Both physically and emotionally.

I was helping my niece and nephew pain a room in their apartment. I hadn't actually painted much, so I decided to pitch in. I made about eight strokes of the roller when, SNAP! We heard a snap. I felt a snap. I felt a sharp pain. And the next thing I knew, I was face down in a platter of blue paint. Paralyzed. I mean, like, I couldn't move. My sister and nephew were stepping over me. "We have to finish, otherwise the paint will ruin

It took about two weeks to get back on my feet again after the back attack. I had another business trip planned. I’d better be ready. !" Snookie announced.

I just looked up at her from the floor in disgust.

It was pretty much all downhill from there for the next two weeks.

It was bad because I was at a new job and wanted to be on point, not laid up. So I was determined to get better. It was just taking so long!

I’d heard Howard Stern talk, for years, about Dr. John Sarno’s book, Mind Over Back Pain. Sookie had it. But I never read it. Howard had said that if you read the book your back pain will go away. I always thought that was pretty hard to believe. I mean, how could that be?

But I was becoming desperate.

Thought I’d read Sookie’s copy. But turns out I didn’t have it. She did. I thought she’d loaned it to me a couple of years back.

She called me. And started reading excerpts from the book to me over the phone. She’d said that it had described my attack, like to the ‘t’. She read on.

After the phone call, I decided to look the author up online. I was able to read some excerpts there. It was really interesting. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I ordered a couple of his books. Logged off and went over to my suitcase to pack for the following day’s trip.

I was sitting on the floor, next to my bag, packing..I was movin kinda slow. But I needed something a little farther away, but I didn’t want to get up. So I reached. Which could have been a painful proposition a while earlier.

Yeah, I reached. Got the thing and kept on packing.

After a few minutes, I did it again. Then I thought, ‘Why didn’t that hurt?’

It didn’t hurt!

I twisted right. Then left. It still didn’t hurt. ‘That definitely would’ve hurt minutes prior. Why doesn’t it hurt?’

I stood up. Still no pain.

Picked up the phone and called Sookie. Told her what happened. She was amazed too.

I was a believer. It was mind over back pain. And I felt better!

Blue Butterfly

I miss my Poppy.

He passed five years ago.

We were very close.

I will never be the same.

My heart is broken.

On one of the days following his passing, I looked up to the sky. Asking for a sign, that my Pop was near. It was a cloudy, rainy night. Then, all of a sudden, I saw a lightening bolt.

“Huh? Could that have been the sign?” I thought. “Probably.” But I could not be sure. It didn’t seem like a miracle had just happened. I mean, if one did, wasn’t it supposed to be a bit more dramatic than that? I thought it, saw it, looked around. Wondered. Thought about it some more. And it was over.

Days later, friends came to call, as they had been during the days after the fateful day.

My friend’s child had passed months prior. She said that she’d asked her daughter for a sign following her passing. She asked that if her daughter was there, let her see a blue butterfly. And then she went on with her day.

Minutes later, she passed a store, where she saw a blue butterfly picture in the storefront window. She had received her sign. After that, every time she saw a blue butterfly, she felt it meant that her daughter’s spirit was near.

So I asked her, “Was the lightening bolt I saw a sign? Or was it just a coincidence because it was raining?”

My friend replied, “It was a sign. So, it was rainy. The sign has to come from somewhere.”

A day or two after their visit, Sookie was downstairs, in the basement, looking for something at my Poppy’s work table. He was in the middle of working on a few things when he fell ill. On his desk was a picture…

… of a blue butterfly.

We accepted the sign.

I miss my Poppy.

But when I see a blue butterfly, I know that he is near. Watching over us. Protecting us. Comforting us.

And then I know…

Everything’s gonna be alright.

My First Crush

I mentioned my Pop commuted with my across the street crush in a previous post about the Long Island Railroad. The crush’s name was Tommy. Tommy Mickens. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Tommy. I was eight years old, or however old you are supposed to be when you go to third grade. It was the first day of school. My family and I had just moved from Queens to Long Island in August of that summer. I had never taken the bus to school before. In Queens, everybody walked. I was pretty nervous, as one always is for the first day of school. But even more so because it was a new school in a new neighborhood, and I didn’t know anybody.

My Mom walked me to the bus stop on our corner. There, I met Mary, who was also in my grade and class, and lived just around the block. My new best friend. Then we saw someone walking toward the bus stop. Mary was talking, but her voice went into the distance as I stared. He was a bit chunky. As he came closer, I saw two beautiful crystal pools of blue coming toward me. I stared. I never saw anything like it in Queens! Are they real? Is that possible? How could a person’s eyes be so blue? I stared and stared some more as he came closer.

It was Tommy Mickens. Our neighbor from across the street. As our Moms introduced us, I barely heard what they said as I was hypnotized by his eyes.

I mean, I was only eight. Could I really understand anything about attraction then? I don’t think so, but there it was. I had such a crush. But I didn’t even get it. I just knew he was beautiful. It took my breath away.

I had a crush on him ever since. I still do. It never went away.

Our families became very close and we all saw each other all the time. The crush definitely got worse during puberty. And I think he may have had some kind of attraction to me too at some point. But nothing ever happened other than a friendship that lasts til this day. But I was just a buddy on the block to him.

He’s since married and has teenagers of his own. But the last time I saw him, it was as if I was eight years old at the bus stop again. Lost in the blueness of the pools of his beautiful eyes. And there, it would stay.

How the LIRR Helped Me Find My True Love

I am sitting on a Long Island Railroad train to Penn Station, Manhattan. Spent the weekend on Long Island with Mom. I love Long Island, but I hate the Long island Railroad. I mean, it’s great that we have the LIRR, but I have the right to hate it, don’t I? I’ve traveled on it for the past 30 years. The LIRR is the reason why I now live in Manhattan. I was so sick of using the damn thing that I moved out of Long Island because of it!

I hate it for several reasons; it is expensive, during rush hour you can’t get a seat, even though you paid an arm and a leg for your monthly ticket, if it drizzles out the trains stop running, it is seldom on time, ticket prices increase every year and service stays the same, you can’t get a parking spot in the parking lots of the stations, changing at Jamaica, the gap.

Shall I continue?

I suppose that’s enough for now.

My relationship with the LIRR began many years ago, when I would spend the summer at temp jobs in the city. I’d travel in with my father, who commuted daily. He was very regimented, to say the least (OCD is more like it). We’d have to sit on the same seat in the same car every day. The smoker car. Well, actually, when I first started riding they ALL were smoker cars. You could cut the smoke with a knife.

After a few years, smoking was limited to a certain couple of cars, “The Smoker Cars” or just “The Smokers”. The smoke was even worse in there. And through the tobacco haze, there I was, I inhaling all the lovely toxins that the smokers exhaled. It didn’t really bother me at the time. I’d grown up with my father’s second hand smoke all my life.

I remember, a woman would bring along her five-year-old daughter every day. In the smoker. I think back on it now, and can’t believe she did that to that poor child! I can just imagine what the girl is like now; wrinkled, grey skin, and hacking up lugis.

Back then, I’d wear my most fabulous pumps with my most fabulous outfit and walk through the streets of the city that way. All the time, trying to catch up with my Pop, who was power walking in his most fabulous shoes and most fabulous suit. Never slowing down for a moment. I was mostly behind him the entire way. We’d stop for coffee and a cinnamon bun, and continue on our way.

Pop taught me a lot, those summers. How to maneuver the city as well as the commute. It was an education. He educated several of us over his 40 years of commuting; me, Sookie, our across the street neighbor (and my first crush) Tommy, and our cousin Sam.

Years later, after Pop retired, I’d do the commute on my own. That’s when I taught myself how to use the subway system. It was a difficult commute, as I had to get to the Upper East Side once arriving at Penn Station. So, then, sometimes I would drive instead. That was also no picnic either. Sometimes taking two and a half hours door to door. I would think, “Which was the lesser of the two evils? Driving or training?” Both sucked.

After twenty years of this, I tried reducing my commute time by moving to a town which had the shortest LIRR commute, like Rockville Center and Merrick, Long Island. I also looked for apartments in these towns, but walking distance from the train station, so to lessen the commute time even more. But even this was not good enough. Better. But not good enough.

That’s when I decided to bite the bullet and try my luck in Manhattan. That’s when the love affair began.