The Gloaming Scriptures

The word of the day over at M-W.com is ‘gloaming’. I don’t know when or where I first heard this word, but I’ve loved it as a word I can know and almost never use. It describes a time of day which modern people are losing to rush hour and re-runs. I like it over twilight because it does more to set the mood than its definition’s partner. While twilight describes a time of day, the mechanical action of day passed into night, gloaming connotes the sense of conclusion without complete accomplishment.

Maybe I’m drawing too much from the word’s closeness in spelling to gloom to arrive at the mood I’m explaining, but gloaming feels like a time to race in as much wood chopping as you can before night steals your vision. A time of day which requires you to stop even if you’d rather—must— continue on.

Also interesting to me is that the word doesn’t convince me each day holds a gloaming. I suspect others who know this word would agree with me that some days just skip straight to evening with no pause for gloaming. As I wonder why I think this is true, I realize it’s because I think gloaming requires a witness. If you haven’t gone outside and absorbed the spent orange and pastelled red of a sunset done, then there won’t be a gloaming that day.

xxx words on day 654