{"id":12817,"date":"2023-09-17T14:39:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-17T21:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=12817"},"modified":"2023-09-17T14:54:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T21:54:21","slug":"one-cup-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/one-cup-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"One Cup At A Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer\u2019s voice on the page.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Cup At A Time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By DSBriggs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judith saw her hand reaching out and towards her mug. She noticed since her brain injury, she had to mentally plan any movement step by step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 She closed one eye so that only one mug was in her vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOK. Lift the hand out of the lap. Make sure the arm isn\u2019t taking a side trip of its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 All right, aim for the mug on the right. Uncurl fingers. That\u2019s progress. No one has to unbend and stretch \u2018em.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The knuckles on her hand were swollen and she noticed she was thinking in third person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy knuckles, my knuckles are swollen. I have crooked fingers too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She watched her arm and hand work in unison as she reached for her mug. She mentally told herself to grab as tight as she could and to slowly slide the glazed stoneware cup off the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was heavy! Was it hot? She wasn\u2019t sure. Her temperature gauge had been slow to return. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judith watched the rim approach her face. She was quite relieved when her lips met the cup lip. The swallowing exercises had begun to pay off as only a little dribble from the left side slid down her chin to plop gently on her sweatshirt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She couldn\u2019t afford to get distracted, so she watched the mug slowly inch back towards the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She saw her hand begin to shake from the exertion of keeping herself from flinging. Overcompensating as the  Occupational Therapist would say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow lift! Dammit!\u201d as she watched.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She let go of the breath she hadn\u2019t realized she\u2019d been holding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Good  job,” she told herself and began to cry again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DSBriggs continues to reside in Northern California. Dog, quilts and good friends occupy her time in between bouts of reading and writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She loves writing in short bursts and with prompts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has felt honored to have been\u00a0published in\u00a0T<\/a>he Write Spot Collections<\/a>: \u201cThe Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries,\u201d The Write Spot: Possibilities,\u201d and \u201cThe Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing. Available in print and as ereaders at Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer\u2019s voice on the page. One Cup At A Time By DSBriggs Judith saw her hand reaching out and towards her mug. She noticed since her brain injury, she had to mentally plan any movement step by step.  She closed one eye so that only one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1474],"tags":[1932,1190],"class_list":["post-12817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sparks","tag-marlene-cullens-write-spot","tag-writing-freely-just-write-writing-prompts-the-write-spot-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-3kJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12817"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12819,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12817\/revisions\/12819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}