Holy the Firm

Dillard’s account of her time in Puget Sound begins on November 18 with a written meditation on the nature of “god.” Dillard suggests that “[e]very day is a god, each day is a god” (11), that god is in the arms that surround her as she wakes up, and that god is Puget Sound. Dillard’s conception of god continues to expand until it reaches the entire Pacific before she returns to the gods of particular days, envisioning the actions of November 18’s god. Dillard then turns to Small, a cat who stays with Dillard and has recently undergone a surgical operation. Dillard draws a connection between the sound Small makes while licking her sutures and the way “the sky clicks securely in place over the mountains” (12). This connection affirms the day’s reality.

Dillard provides an account of the other animals that inhabit her cabin. She pays particular attention to a spider who has taken up residence behind her toilet. The spider, for whom Dillard uses feminine pronouns, subsists on a diet of earwigs, sow bugs, and moths. Dillard takes particular care in describing the desiccated exoskeletons left over from the spider’s meals and treats the spider’s molted exoskeleton with the same attention.