Being on crutches at any time is tough, it's worse in winter, trust me. I hobbled up the walk, eyes on the concrete patches shining through the mottled pattern of crusted snow, to reach the door. Canes don't have the same complexity, you only need to place one rubber foot and you always have a leg to stand on. Using crutches means that you relinquish control to two unfeeling platforms, rubber ends that support your body weight on four square inches rather than the feet you're used to.

I know the ghoul in you wants to hear about an awful fall, where crutches and limbs splay akimbo and tortured muscles flatten between concrete and bones. It's not hard to see that eager sweat limning the three dimensions of your body. You gleam, darling, really. It makes you cold with disappointment when my fingers grasp the doorknob. Especially chilled as the wind slips between your zipper and throat, to close the frost around your neck, but it's winter and only to be expected.

Once inside and beyond the ken of nosy neighbours and curious kids, my hat and gloves shed onto the hall table, pockets spill onto the silver pool of change tray, while boots drip into a pool of their own making. Now is the dangerous time, the time the rubber ends of the crutches are still frozen and the melt lubricates the slick tiles of the foyer. The stairs up into the living room are a mad carpenter's rendition of Mount Saint Elias in celebration of Canadian geography.

I delay my departure. The expedition needs more preparation. I lean the crutches against the wall, watching in dismay as they succumb to gravity and slip, first slowly and then accelerate in an arching slide to the floor. That will need to be dealt with, but not now. The relative humidity and warmth of the house creates a junglelike swelter inside my jacket, ridding my shoulders of its clinging weight is tops on this hopper's list of priorities.
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Balanced on one leg, the Canadian crutchdancer struggles at the opening to its shelter. Gripping a recalcitrant zipperpull of its winter coat, the female crutchdancer shouts its greeting call into the warm confines of the nest. As the zipper opens the CCD (as its called in biological circles) sways in an awkward celebration of freedom, exhaling loudly.

A near ballet gracefulness exhibited here, as she bends to recover the fallen crutches and then a leg shake freeing her hanging appendage of its footwear. Watch now, as the warm air stimulates bladder release urges just as all of the CCD's weight hangs balanced in delicate equalibrium between her sticks. The last boot is kicked off in haste as the urge to void hovers between insistence and desperation.

The Canadian Crutchdancer
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Hinterland Who's Who has nothing on me.

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