I’m grateful for the occasional stability of my skeleton, always enhanced by a visit to Dr. Leigh. Wren helped her at this morning’s appointment, following her about as she moved around the table gently pressing and pulling on my body, assisting as needed, and a couple of times lending an extra four hands by jumping up and standing on top of me. When I peeled myself away from the soft, heated table, little Wren did not want to leave.

I’m grateful for the tenuous stability of the cliffs on either side of the hairpin turn heading to or from town. From halfway on the south slope you can just see the road below wintered cottonwoods, and above it the giant boulder with a smaller boulder tilted on top it. There’s a deep crack between boulder and cliffside. More and more often, especially in winter, I keep my eye on it as I approach, then punch the gas as I pass beneath it–just in case. I’m grateful it hasn’t crashed down on me or anyone else so far. Someday, maybe tomorrow, the rock will fall.

From the same place in the road (I rarely stop on this road for obvious reasons, but today was feeling stable enough within to risk it), other boulders loom and another huge piece of the cliff overhangs, just waiting for that one last freeze-thaw cycle to release its grip and tumble down. The road itself constantly requires repair as the steep slope below steadily, slowly erodes. We dwell on a living, breathing, sighing, sloughing planet, clinging to our diaphanous illusion of stability. I’m grateful for the illusion, and for the stability gained from knowing it is just an illusion.