serene

Some words really capture their meaning, and this is one of them. The evenly spaced "e"s; the gentle curvature of the letters; the soft consonants; the very sound of the word, which swings neatly around the "r" into a second syllable that seems to stretch into the distance even after the word has been uttered, as if off to the horizon. Have placidity and ease, contentment and complacency, detachment and relaxation, ever been so aptly encapsulated in text? I find it difficult to recall a rival. It leaves even its corrupted forms - serenity, sereneness, serenely - in the dust, choking on their unwieldly extraneous characters and stifled sophomore syllables.