away to the circus

Hello there! I know, it's been a minute...or several years, whatever. Explanation? Well, I could say I ran away to the circus, which is kinda true, but I didn't run so much as take a plane, then a bus, then a train...and it wasn't several years ago, it was Saturday...and it's not Barnum and Bailey, it's circus camp...and no ordinary circus camp...it's amputee circus camp, or as we campers have affectionately termed it, Camputee 2019!

This is actually the second annual Amputee Circus Camp, hosted in Kingston, Ontario, at Kingston Circus Arts by the lovely and talented Erin Ball. Erin lost her legs below the knee several years ago. She was an aerialist before her accident, and she has continued with a mission to bring others with limb difference and disability into the world of circus.

So here I am. Just getting to hang out with other limb-less or partially-limbed folk from all over is novel enough, much less have the opportunity to play together on fabric, trapeze, and other aerial apparatus. It's surreal. 

Erin and Talli

There's a good variety of us with partial arms or legs or both. Very few times in my life have I had the pleasure of being in the majority when it comes to limb deficiency. And to find as many other folk with limb differences who are ALSO interested in circus arts is close to impossible. But then, "impossible" is a word we don't give much credit around here.

Of course we are all serious about circus and working so hard our entire bodies are aching with soreness, but the comedic potential in such an environment is astronomical. Just one peek: in the Starbucks drive-thru the other morning with Bonnie and Talli, both with lower limb deficits, we missed the ordering spot and I offered to jump out and ask the car behind us to back up, only to discover the child-lock was preventing me from exiting the vehicle...me, the one most able to jump out. Don't fear, coffee was ascertained eventually, an international incident averted.

OneArmGirl