IN PRAISE OF EPHEMERA

by Roberta Jean Bryant


I’m an ephemeral events junkie, and particularly delighted that my most favorite example is arriving a month early. Pink dogwoods are blooming everywhere. They look like clouds of pink butterflies settling on silver-gray bare branches. If I could sing I’d burst into song, but end up settling for, “Look, look! Isn’t it glorious?” repeated many times over while driving around in the springtime.

“Ephemera” is a collective noun used to categorize “anything short-lived or transitory.” Antiques Roadshow experts refer to “paper ephemera” such as ticket stubs, event programs, letters and such because they are often discarded and most do not survive the years with the same permanency as a blanket chest or rocking chair.

Flowers are perfect. They bloom and die in a relatively short time span. Butterflies and fireflies and houseflies; asparagus and artichokes and pizza; clouds and rainbows and hailstorms. The aurora borealis and shooting stars and comets. All ephemeral.

Friends and lovers can often fall into this category too – much as we might wish it otherwise.

One reason I love ephemera is that I’m forced to enjoy them NOW. There’s no such thing as, “Wait a minute,” or later when a sunrise or sunset is happening. Often you can’t properly plan an ephemeral event anyway; too many variables.

Nevertheless, I am planning my annual pilgrimage to Denny Hall on the U of W campus. There I hope to find the huge old pink dogwood festooned with its seasonal costume of rosy butterflies before they fade away as perfect ephemera are wont to do. I don’t want to miss the show.