One Day At A Time
Let it begin with me
I was 4 years old and an inpatient at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles for neuroblastoma. It was 1977 and there were several other kids in the room with me. Everyday was very routine and my favorite time was a regular visit to the playroom, getting to make arts and crafts. I felt like a regular kid during those sessions. The other thing that stuck out to me in the hospital was the sheer kindness and compassion of all the staff that worked with the kids. You have to be a special kind of person to want to work in a pediatric oncology unit.
I was 44 years old. It was January of 2018. The latest Trump shitstorm was him taunting Kim Jong Un about his nuclear button. The last thing I remember was being in the ambulance and crying to the EMT that I didn’t want to die and him reassuring me that I wouldn’t. I woke up groggy and confused in the ICU at Ronald Reagan Hospital at UCLA in Westwood. A teaching hospital, doctors are always in groups when they make their rounds. They were asking me if I knew my name and what year it was and if I could feel them poking my feet. Then I saw them try to pick up my left hand, but instead pick up what looked like a rubber hand that belonged to a large doll. They asked me if I felt the poking and reality started to wash over me, and I realized what I thought was a fake hand was actually my left hand. I still didn’t know the extent of what happened to me, but I knew it was really bad. This is how I felt on election night this year. I didn’t want to believe that after Madison Square Garden, he could win. His campaign was beyond atrocious, there was no bottom.
Back in the ICU, I was told I had a massive hemorrhagic stroke and was going to go into brain surgery so they could relieve the pressure. I had been through bad things before, including cancer twice before and my family has had more than our fair share of tragic losses. PTSD makes you feel like if you try to anticipate every possible outcome that you can somehow figure out a way to be spared from the worst, but all it really does is create this hyper-vigilant humming of terror and misery. When I realized that I was going to be on a long road of recovery (which I'm still on in 2024), I knew I could not do it without bringing every ounce of presence to be able to listen to the still small voice within. Showing up sometimes is the best one can do and that’s a lot. It’s so easy to give up and sink into the abyss. I know because I’ve lived there hiding from the world because I didn’t feel I had anything left to give. Who was I when I had nothing to offer except a hello, please, thank you, or a smile? I made the choice at that moment to slow down and be fully in each moment and pray for the strength to find some beauty even if it was just staring at the artwork on the hospital wall and noticing the way that the light from the sun changed the way the artwork looked as the shadows shifted throughout the day.
Bad shit is gonna happen and good shit is gonna happen. People are going to let you down and people will pleasantly surprise you. There will be unexpected heroes, but we can't count on that. We only have control over our reactions and what kind of person we want to be. How can I contribute to the solution and not to the problem? I don't know, but I do know if I think I have something to offer, I can only do it from a place of centered calm.
When Trump won two weeks ago, my mind went through all the horrible possibilities and I started reading every article I could find on how to fight tyranny, looking at books on people who had been through autocratic regimes and how they survived (by the way I found quite a many great books which I will link on my forthcoming Resources page) and I started reading all the hot takes on what went wrong for the Pro-Democracy coalition. Panicked hypervigilance set in and I was doing that in order to figure out what part I could play to prevent it from happening again but I was spinning out and I needed to come back to my center and find that connection with my source.
I remember listening to this podcast where a psychiatrist said in moments like this we need to slow down. I know that the only way that I will make it through 4 years of Trump is with discernment, self-care, and listening to my inner guidance. My trauma brain tells me to “figure it out” but in 12-step programs, we have a saying that “figure it out is not a slogan.” What slogans comes to mind right now are:
One day at a time
Do the next right thing
Let it begin with me
Easy Does It
Let Go Let God
For those who may be atheist or agnostic (which is perfectly welcome in 12-step programs), God can mean Good Orderly Direction. For me, prayer and meditation slow me down and help me hear the next right thing.
I cannot express enough gratitude for the beautiful holy souls who worked in the ICU. I could never repay what they were doing for me and I made a point to always know and remember their name and every time they came in to say hello and thank you. And that made all the difference and it made me feel like I was giving something too. Over those next 30 days I didn't know if I would ever move my left side again but I prayed and I visualized and I did what I could with my right side. And one day in February of 2018 as I was willing my my leg to move, it started with a little twitch.
Six months later I was in the rehab facility doing my exercises with the physical therapist and hobbling around with a walker, I remember seeing someone who was a complete paraplegic doing some exercises and I thought to myself “that person is so fucking brave to show up every day.” I found the fire within to try again and that as long as I’m breathing I will never give up. While in the early days of my hospitalization, I asked my mom to bring me some notebook and some pens. I just knew that I needed to journal. Drawing and writing quotes, proverbs, holy poems, and the words of mystics and sages throughout the ages has always brought me comfort in hard times. That really gave me something to focus on and today when I start to feel a little overwhelmed by all the things that I can’t control I will be still and wait. In the meantime, I’m starting my book dive with Eddie Glaude Jr.’s wonderful, We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures).
Here is a good advice from author Amy Siskind:
Below are photos from the journey.
Field Notes: A CatraChicana Between Worlds
Newsletter by Sylvia Marina Martinez. Pro-Democracy Artist sharing my experience, strength, and hope. Two-time cancer survivor, stroke survivor, Gen X, California-Born, Chicana-Catracha in 12-step recovery.