The Two Most Beautiful Words in the English Language

I was reading “On Boredom,” an article by Erin Wunker from the Summer 2020 issue of Brick, which opens with this paragraph:

“Let’s imagine it is interesting to think about boredom. The particular boredom of childhood: vague, a bit listless, on the precipice of possibility. Where time is expansive and anything and nothing might pique one’s curiosity, or it might not. The kind of boredom in which afternoons are eternal.”

When I read the reference to afternoons, I recalled Henry James’s often-repeated lines: “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” I then recalled the summer afternoons of my childhood, many of which I spent outside, riding my bike up and down the sidewalk, or pounding the tetherball over the heads of the neighborhood kids (I was tall even back then) and when the temperature rose towards 100 degrees, inside the house, reading a book in front of the swamp cooler.

Time passes differently for children than it does for adults. It’s infinite, elastic, and disquieting. I’m saddened when I hear of kids who already have calendars full of activities; i.e., soccer practice, French lessons, SAT tutoring. To me, this goes against the major gift of childhood: vast stretches of free time. How can a child enjoy those beautiful summer afternoons with a cluttered agenda? Imagine if a school-aged Emily Dickenson, cramming for a chemistry test, had missed the day that brought us this poem:

            As imperceptibly as grief

            The summer lapsed away, —

            Too imperceptible, at last,

            To seem like perfidy.

Boredom is an important part of a child’s free time, especially the peculiar condition of summer boredom. As Wunker puts it: “Though surely I was bored at other times, it was always summer boredom that was visceral. Underwater time. Mornings on a screened-in porch, the ancient Naugahyde glider creaking as I tap my foot. Afternoons spent swimming swimming swimming. Evenings that stretch past dinner, the hum of mosquitos thickening as the sun fades. Almost always I am alone in these memories. There is never television. There are often books, which I have finished, and the feeling of almost-sleep or near-frustration.” 

In her essay, “Derichment,” from Synthesizing Gravity, Selected Prose, Kay Ryan denounces our culture’s mad rush to fill every second with “enriching” activities. “Children, it is often maintained, must be enriched; bread must be enriched. Weren’t they rich already?” When I was raising my two sons, I tried to keep their summers as free of “enrichment” as possible. We did a few camps, an art class or two, and we went on camping trips, but most of the time, I left them to their own devices. Boredom surfaced from time to time, and I did my best to help my children through it (“Let’s try a new recipe!” “Have you finished that Harry Potter book yet?” “How about we invite a friend over?”) but mostly, I let them use their imaginations, skills, and curiosity.

At the end of “Derichment,” Ryan writes, “It can be a good thing, then, to feel trapped, cut off, at your wit’s end, bored silly, left out, tricked, drained. We need to hear that gurgle when the straw probes futilely for more Coke. We need to be deriched.”

So when the dullness of boredom creeps over you, remember that we are in the season of summer afternoons—long, beautiful, languid hours that call us away from our duties to simply sit and contemplate something.

Or nothing, if you prefer.