Daryl's Belleville Outdoor Musings

I was halfway through ordering a double-double at the Tim Hortons on Main Street, juggling my kid on my hip and my reusable coffee cup in one hand, when I noticed my left knee had ballooned around the patella. It had this tight, glossy look, like an overfilled balloon, and every step felt like walking through a packet of garden mulch. It was a Sunday afternoon, the kind where kids have run off all their energy and my wife is giving me that look that says, "You should have g

I was standing in line at the Tim Hortons in Bramalea, coffee cup sweating in my hand, when I realised my knee had ballooned. Not the polite puff you get after a hard skate, but the kind that made the seam of my jeans sit funny over the kneecap and made me shift my weight from one foot to the other like a three-legged man. I tried to pretend I could still walk it off. My kid was clamouring for Timbits, my wife had already texted an "are you okay" emoji, and I told myself th

I was halfway through paying for a rotisserie chicken at the Costco in Vaughan, juggling my kid on my hip and a cart full of things we definitely did not need, when I noticed the limp. Not the little hobble I’d learned to live with after a rough hockey check, but a new, heavy sort of limp that made me shift the kid to the other hip and wince when I stepped. My right knee looked puffed, like someone had blown up a balloon under the skin. It was a Tuesday afternoon, the air s

I was hunched over the shopping cart in the Costco parking lot, watching my mother slowly pick her way back to the car, and it hit me that this was not how a weekend grocery run should look. She had a new knee, a surgery that had gone well according to the follow-ups, but her limp was still obvious. The kid in the backseat was banging a juice box, I had a Tim Hortons cup sweating on the console, and I could feel my own shoulders knot from trying to help too much and not kno

I was halfway through the Costco parking lot, juggling a diaper box and a coffee, when I noticed my left knee puffed up like I’d put a tennis ball under the skin. It was a Sunday afternoon, the kid asleep in the back, and I remember thinking, not for the first time, that I had ignored the little twinges for too long. The drive home on the 410 was a blur of orange highway lights and the sort of mental bookkeeping you do when you are trying to decide if something is worth a d

I was halfway through ordering a double-double at the Tim Hortons inside the Costco parking lot when I noticed my left knee had puffed up like a grapefruit. It was odd, because I had been careful after the surgery, doing the daily exercises the hospital had scribbled on a sheet, but there it was, a weird, shiny swelling under my patella that made me stand funny, shifting weight from one foot to the other like I was auditioning for a bad dad joke. I remember thinking, not fo

I was halfway through ordering my usual double-double at the Tim Hortons on Queen and Kennedy when I felt the band around my knee tighten like someone had pulled a vice. I remember standing there, coffee cup in one hand, phone in the other, and thinking, seriously? Of all the places for this to flare up. The knee looked a little puffier than normal, not grotesque, more like someone had left it in the sun. I shuffled to the car, the parking lot at Costco replaying in my head

I was hunched over the steering wheel, sitting in the slow crawl on the 401, and my knee felt like it was full of gravel. It was the kind of pain that made you hold your breath when the lane opened and you could finally move, because movement meant a sudden, jagged reminder that something inside wasn't happy. My phone was buzzing with a text from my wife asking where I was, and I typed back "stuck, will be late," which is the honest truth most of the time. This time it was