
And from somewhere within my body, this deep need to turn inwards came to the surface, demanded to be seen, couldn’t be silenced or deterred.
#Antonym of ephemeral series
Instead of independent obstacles or disparate challenges, work now felt like a daily series of attempts to ram myself into a giant brick wall of inequity and ill logic - a wall that showed no signs of crumbling. Whereas before I’d viewed challenges in my work as obstacles to be overcome, doors to kick down, puzzles to solve, I found myself less and less able to muster the energy for these fights. While I’d previously found tremendous joy in my job, I now found joy more ephemeral, more elusive. It continued when the district decided to subdivide our green space away from our school for the purpose of building a fieldhouse, but did not meaningfully incorporate student or community feedback in their process. And it got even worse when we returned to school buildings in September 2020 to see that the only ventilation being provided by our school district was $19 box fans that didn’t even fit in many of the windows. It began when the Boston Public Schools attempted to close my school for no apparent reason, requiring our school community to mobilize and fight to keep it open. And then, around 2018, something started to shift.

#Antonym of ephemeral full
It took years and substantive effort for us to impose “no school Saturdays” in our house, to guarantee ourselves at least one day when we weren’t consumed by work.įor the first 15 years of my career, this was how I functioned: at full speed, just as my immigrant parents had. On vacations, we forced ourselves to leave town for extended periods, convinced that if we stayed in Boston we would work. Most weekends included at least one day of work. When we met for dinner in the evenings, we struggled to find energy - or even words - for one another, having exhausted most of our emotional resources on the young people in our school buildings. Most days, mine was the only car in the parking lot when I left the building the same went for that of my partner, also a teacher. And I threw myself, and my body, into that work. There was always another lesson to plan, a paper to grade, a parent to contact. As a teacher in the Boston Public Schools, my to-do list was unending. And so, for nearly two decades, I fashioned my life and my career after my parents - I worked. Rest is not a state of being that I understood for a very long time. Through observation, I came to see rest as a privilege. They lived an extremely minortized existence, and had no safety net but for the one they were building through their constant movement. My parents were Indian immigrants to Appalachia. In many ways, I’ve come to understand this way of living as an exercise in survival. And when they traveled, it was also in Drive mode - constant activity from early morning to late at night. When they weren’t entertaining, they were volunteering. When they weren’t gardening, they were entertaining. When they weren’t exercising, they were gardening. When they weren’t working, they were exercising. I come from a family of people who only operate in one gear, and that gear is Drive. However, transitory applies to what is by its nature or essence bound to change, pass, or come to an end.A peaceful sunrise on Jamaica Pond, Jamaica Plain, MA. In some situations, the words transitory and ephemeral are roughly equivalent. The synonyms transient and ephemeral are sometimes interchangeable, but transient applies to what is actually short in its duration or stay.Ī hotel catering primarily to transient guests When can transitory be used instead of ephemeral?

My feelings of guilt were only momentary In what contexts can transient take the place of ephemeral? The words momentary and ephemeral can be used in similar contexts, but momentary suggests coming and going quickly and therefore being merely a brief interruption of a more enduring state. Let a fugitive smile flit across his faceįleeting moments of joy When could momentary be used to replace ephemeral? The story has an evanescent touch of whimsy that is lost in translation How are the words fugitive and fleeting related as synonyms of ephemeral?īoth fugitive and fleeting imply passing so quickly as to make apprehending difficult.

Specifically, evanescent suggests a quick vanishing and an airy or fragile quality. The words evanescent and ephemeral are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Many slang words are ephemeral When would evanescent be a good substitute for ephemeral? While all these words mean "lasting or staying only a short time," ephemeral implies striking brevity of life or duration. Some common synonyms of ephemeral are evanescent, fleeting, fugitive, momentary, transient, and transitory. Frequently Asked Questions About ephemeral How is the word ephemeral different from other adjectives like it?
