WHITE CANE TRAVELLERS
By Kim Pilic

Forward Steps Mobility loves providing independent Orientation & Mobility (O&M) Specialist services. The following prose is therefore written in recognition of all present and past white cane travellers.

Prose:
To all the white cane travellers, past and present, may you walk with an extra spring in your steps, navigating the world around you with confidence and surety of stride.
You are people of rhythm, synching hand, feet and cane, ensuring the midline is not side-lined and synchronicity is not asynchronistic.
You are tappers who detect tactile tiles, fluid motion through space, creating echo feedback of interpretive style.
You part crowds like Moses and his staff, with a sea of people forming v-lines to your left and right, like a guard of honour they move in lateral style.
The cane is an extension of your eyes, hands and feet, interpreting, previewing, looking and kinaesthetically informing about your surroundings.
The cane adds dimension, extension and a form of inspection to engage your sensory attention.
It alerts, protects, detects, inspects, rejects and deflects as an intervening tool of simplistic design, yet plays a profoundly important role in all its scope of repertoire actions.
It enables objective negotiation of connective travel from A to B, promoting safety, efficiency and dignity.
It’s a corrector of posture, straightening corporeal frames, where visual gaze is corrected, being lifted up instead of down.
You are travellers with purpose who walk not ashamed to communicate the need for people to look out for your space, physical barrier created with tapping tip in place.
There is skill to this primary mobility aid that some call a white stick; two-point touch, constant contact, diagonal, and, three-point touch.
You are masters of independence, equipped with a navigational tool designed for accessing varying spaces and places.