Gloaming

Next to the word "slope," my favorite word in the English language is the word "gloaming." I have loved that word since before I knew what I wanted to do with my life: before college, before high school, before I read Anne and spent days afterwards dreaming of winning scholarships and studying English in remote Canadian schools. I've been reading Joan Didion's new book Blue Nights this week, which begins with a beautiful passage about this liminal space between afternoon and night:

The French called this time of day "l'heure bleue." To the English it was "the gloaming." The very word "gloaming" reverberates, echoes--the gloaming, the glimmer, the glitter, the glisten, the glamour--carrying in its consonants the images of houses shuttering, gardens darkening, grass-lined rivers slipping through the shadows. During the blue nights you think the end of the day will never come. (p. 4)

L'heure bleue. Gloaming. In my house, we've always called it "blue time," an unprecedented nod to our French brethren. Those particular hours when the light dims and the shadows feather, slide, and deepen.