Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Category: Miscellany

Anything that’s on my mind.

  • prompt 41

    What is one thing you would change about yourself?

    Beauty may be skin-deep, but it makes people know more about the person, especially a woman. I wish I could find a fairy – specifically a pixie who knows glamor spells – who can make me beautiful so people will stop ignoring and mistreating my existence. 🧚‍♀️

    Jane Eyre knew she wanted beauty like her spiteful cousins because she learned that beauty could purchase an indemnity for a doer’s wrongdoings. Thankfully, Jane was endowed with a fortitude that would withstand any form of injustice, so a lack of external beauty would be compensated with her scintillating intelligence as a saving grace. Honestly, I believe and feel that although the degree of treatment of women according to their physical attractiveness in the eyes of the beholders has been civilly lessened with the advent of Feminism and growing political correctness, appearance does play a significant role in how others shape your personality in society. It’s called the Looking-Glassed Self, a shaping of self-image by how others see you, whether you agree or not.

    The standard of beauty is all the more appreciated by the faculty of the mind affected by the works of imagination. It is universal in all humans regarding principles of judgment and sentiment common to all humankind. Beauty transcends race and class for women. Not every woman is endowed with angelical goodness, dazzling intelligence, and admiring wit. Beauty will complement it all, and I want it. ✨

  • prompt 40

    Are you more of a night or morning person?

    I am a lunar person who wakes up early when the morning dew is released as the Moon returns her home before the Sun Chariot and writes late in the evening when the stars are serenading the Moon.

    Days are for the Bread and Nights for the Mind. When I am off from work at home, I watch movies during the day and write at night, followed by reading my Kindle. I feel my creative streak comes out when the sun goes down, just as my cats become more active at the same time. Perhaps my nocturnal tendencies spring from being a Tiger animal sign, born at 7 o’clock on a wintry night. The words appear in flights of fancy, and the images conjure up in a phantasmagorical display on a magical mirror. Perhaps it’s the lunar power that draws me into the mysteries of the world that has never been. Or is it the lunar power in me thas has never been known?

    Oh, and did I mention I wake up at the Witching Hour now and then? My two cats, Toro and Camille, know it too, but they are only glad to see me waking so I can give them nightly treats. I feel welcome in the World of Night. ⭐️🌟💫✨🧚‍♀️

  • Prompt 37

    What technology would you be better off without, why?

    Being a transient generation privileged with the Dolby system on CD and DVD to the digital sound of streaming music and movies, I opine that a fax machine with manual feeders should be enshrined in the Museum of Civilization for Posterity. 🤓

  • prompt 36

    What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?

    I have my share of making the hardest decision that I want to divulge in the hope of making the readers see that your problems are not unique but common to all of us and, therefore, support you to do what your heart tells you to do.

    Do you like Dickensian stories? So the story goes.

    It happened at my workplace, where I started this past March. I landed this job through a referral of an employee who was a friend of my acquaintance. I am thankful that I got this job, which is highly competitive with decent pay and benefits here in Los Angeles, CA. But the gratitude should not exploit my dignity and vulnerability at no expense. The employee who referred me to the job became my supervising manager, but it didn’t take long for me to realize her uncontrollable temper, topped with tantrums and mistreatment of me in public. She constantly berated my performance – even if my mistakes were not fatal, resulting from her inept management and leadership skills. She caviled at my appearance, saying it’s too thin and thus pauperish and haggard. That didn’t end there. She shouted at me over the phone every Friday when she worked from home, tainting TGIF in Evil Friday. And the torture continued.

    My colleagues who shared the same office space witnessed such malice and urged me to talk to HR so that they could put me on a different team. However, I was hesitant to do so, though my spirit was yearning, because I was afraid of the worst scenario of my getting discharged from the position since I was still on a probation period. So, I waited until a divine sign resulted from my prayer. Days passed, and finally, the moment arrived on a Friday. I couldn’t take her insult any longer, so I took the matter to HR in person and via email. The result was the change of my team from hell to heaven. Now, I work under an organized manager with leadership/management skills and a graceful personality as a bonus. So, in sum, my hard decision to voice out a cry of the heart was fortuitous. Happy Ending.

  • Don’t think too much

    Site icon
    Don’t think too much

  • prompt 35

    If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

    A deprivation of sleep would be a nightmare to me. Sleep is the most natural and safest palliative to forget worries, however temporarily it is. But if there should be any other props for this natural medication, I could keep my promises.

    I want to read and write as much as I should after returning home from work and generally at home. I used to work in an office where I could write during the lull, but for this year, the cognitive processing activities have been reduced to about 10 percent of my daily life because I have been feeling mentally exhausted. It has become psychosomatic by preventing me from sitting at the desk when I am home. My best regular place has become a sofa bed, watching YouTube continuously. I don’t even play with my cats as much as I should because of this sense of powerlessness combined with the weight of existential despair. When writing – which I am doing now during my one-hour lunch at my workplace – I feel so much better with the fogginess of the mind cleared and the heaviness of the spirit relieved.

    Therefore, engaging in activities that use the body and the mind would be the best thing I should do during the extra time because, as the ancient Greeks called it, Mans Sana in coporore Sano. (“Sound Mind, Healthy Body”)