November 2025
By Richard Fleming
Photo by Richard Fleming
My favorite hours are during the gloaming, the time of day when the sun eases down into the horizon. Shadows spread across the hills. The chirping birds of daytime grow silent, settling into their nests. A luminous glow spreads across the twilight sky.
Eventually the stars claim their due and vanquish the fading light, but during its brief and fleeting time, the gloaming creates an aura of magic. As I look out our back window or occasionally sit in the yard watching the gentle dusk take over the land, I am filled with a sense of calm. I feel I’m living in my designated time. Another rotation of the earth completed. Another day done. Another night of peace and renewal at hand.
* * *
And my favorite season is autumn. In many ways it reflects the gloaming. Just as each day grows old, so too does each year. In the fall, the colors are warmer and deeper than during the rest of the year. Leaves catch fire, then fall. Flocks of birds grace the sky, disappearing into the south. The air in autumn feels different than in other seasons. Winter’s air is biting and sharp. Spring’s is bracing, brisk. And summer’s air beats down with a hot intensity. But in the fall, the air becomes soft and gentle. It feels smooth on the skin. I enjoy the embrace of coolness, and the way my jacket brings warmth and comfort.
Autumn, too, sounds different than the other seasons. It is quieter. The noise of children playing outside after school subsides. Nature’s creatures are settling down, with less squawking and cooing. But the silence is not complete. It is broken by the crackling sound of dry leaves skittering down streets and sidewalks, blown by fitful winds, adding a percussive note to the diminishing days.
The season of fall feels like the culmination of everything that transpired in the seasons before. Winter’s barrenness gives way to the new growth of spring, which evolves into the maturation of summer. Then comes autumn. Growth stops and nature pauses, in preparation for the emptiness of winter. Autumn feels like a season of settling, a peaceful period between beginnings and endings, a linkage between openings and closings.
* * *
In autumn, the gloaming is a unique and special time. It is a charmed combination of the best months of the year and the best hours of the day. Twilight in the fall is a tranquil time. It is not so much a season filled with joy, as it is a time filled with serenity. It is rich in meaning and it induces reflection. It is wrapped in a sense of mystery and sweet melancholia.
In many ways, the gloaming in autumn reflects the circumstances of human aging. As we grow old, we reach a pensive stage of life in which we must acknowledge the reality that our growth and maturation have ended. We know that ahead lies diminution and a process of wrapping up.
But growing old need not be a time of despair. It is a time of acceptance. It is a period of seeing the world unambiguously. We reach the point where we can better understand the significance of where we are, where we have come from, and where we are headed. There is so much richness around us. During the gloaming of our lives, we can find serenity, and we can marvel at life’s beauty as well as its inevitable finitude.
Mornings, like springtime, are for the young. Afternoons, like summer, are claimed by those in the middle years. But the gloaming, like autumn, is the province of the old. It is a rich and complex tapestry, filled with beauty and uncertainty, stillness and sadness, but ultimately, acknowledgement.
For me, living through my 75th year, the gloaming in autumn feels like the right place to dwell, for now. This time provides me a sense of settling, acceptance, grace, and peace. But I know at some point the glow will fade, and it will be time to move on.
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A beautiful post, Richard. I admire your reflections on this time of day and time of life.
In recent years, my thoughts about literal autumn have turned to awareness of Fire Season and all the harm it can bring. I also think a bit about my own autumn in terms of what the country’s going through, almost thankful I made it this far before these horrors hit the fan. I worry about what the future especially holds for all those who are in the springs and summers of their lives.
Hopefully, though, when today’s election results come in they’ll signal, if in only a minor way, the prospect of turning the corner back to sunnier times. In the meantime, we do what we can to affect the big picture and value the small, positive pleasures that your posts offer.
Thank you Richard for this wonderful essay about the depth, beauty, and meaning of autumn. I especially resonate with this season of life being relatively free of ambiguity. A shorter horizon brings with it a calm resolve to bring clarity of purpose and meaning to previously muddy waters.
I love this! Autumn is my favorite season too. I’ve been reveling in the sunlit colors of the trees on my daily walks. You’ve described it (and daily “gloaming”) beautifully!
Richard, this is exquisite. It’s more poetry than prose.
Because of my academic career, I’ve always regarded Autumn as a new beginning, a new school year, a fresh start. But now that I, like you, am in my 70’s Autumn was beginning to feel like a battle I was losing. What can I start that I can realistically complete?
Your column takes away the stress and threat of Autumn, and replaces it (and our current age) with acceptance and–as you say–a sense of serenity.
Thank you.
Absolutely beautiful and comforting to my 82 year old self.
Hi Richard, I’ve missed your writings! So beautifully penned.
Yes even as I walk familiar trails and paths I have run for decades I am still in awe of the changing light and colors of each day. And now more than ever soak it in just in case it is my last glimpse of the beauty of the world.
Positively poetical, and beautiful. Thank you!
Tom Snyder, MD