Mornings get the attention. The first cup has a whole literature. Routines, timers, arguments about grind size before six a.m. The end of the day has no literature. It only has the hour.
You can watch the year move from that hour. In June the evening is still broad daylight. By the last week of August the light leaves earlier, a few minutes each night, and the house turns inward a little sooner. The middle of the day will stay summer for weeks yet. The edges go first.
The year turns at the edges of the day, and the evening notices first.
The morning hour has to be claimed. It is spoken for before you wake, and taking it back is a decision. The evening hour is different. It arrives on its own. The day is finished, or as finished as it is going to be, and nothing is coming for the time that is left. And still it goes. To the feed, to the second episode, to the small glow of other people’s days. Not taken. Handed over.
There is a cup for this hour, and it is not the morning’s cup. Nothing needs starting. There is no list to get ahead of. What the evening wants is warmth with nothing riding on it. A coffee with the caffeine taken out of the question, made slowly because there is no reason to hurry. The kettle works at both ends of the day.
None of this needs a program. A chair helps. A window helps more, this time of year, while the light does its leaving. The day will end either way. Ending it on purpose is the difference between a day that closes and one that trails off.
The evening was never lost. It has been sitting at the end of every day, waiting to be noticed.
Keep the hour.
