One of the reasons I like Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte is their happy ending with the most unexpected gift in the bliss of munificent largess that turned around their lives as la dolce vita. Likewise, (and frankly speaking) my Dickensian style of the greatest gift could be a recovery of my father’s stolen ancestral land in the will left by my grandfather.
A Shakespearean play, it may seem, my father’s land was forfeited by his half-brother, who falsely attested to the probate court that my father was lost in contact and, therefore, presumed to be dead. We have recently learned about it and still can’t believe this preponderance of lies. With the purloined land, the half-brother enriched his family, helping his two sons to set up their businesses. The promised land would have significantly helped our family, and we would have lived in a better environment with a Dickensian happy ending.
That happened to Charles Dickens. It was a small estate inherited from his paternal grandmother, which released his impecunious family from a debtor’s jail so that they could settle down in a fixed abode. So, yes. I should be so lucky if we could get back our land. That could be the greatest expectation.
Those were my green salad days on the following Sylvan campuses with pleasantness on memory lanes.
Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey– It was more of a preparatory school for me to prepare for a four-year university. English is my second language (“ESL”) – and the most beloved-and the college had an excellent ESL program equivalent for TOFEL or CELT. I was enrolled in an Honor Program, which helped me to transfer to the higher-level of university.
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey – I lived in the dorm and loved everything about the school. My major was English, so you can guess my initial intimidation of the subject as an ESL competing with native speakers. But I was on a Dean’s List in my senior year, and I am very proud of it. I loved reading Renaissance and Victorian literature classes in their original forms, which were exhilarating. I joined Army ROTC as a student cadet and the NJ Army National Guard at Rutgers. I also joined the Color Guard and Scabbard & Blade, a military honor society. I was a very active student and miss those days.
New York University, New York, New York – While working as a legal secretary at Dorsey & Witney in New York, I attended evening classes for a certificate in Paralegal Studies at NYU. The instructors were all practicing NYC lawyers passionate about sharing their practical knowledge with us. I graduated from the six-month program with good grades, and it was an enriching experience.
Looking back under ever foreign palm trees in California, I miss the east coast where all my college years and my prime times are buried.
I find today’s prompt topic, compared to what I am experiencing, seems too pat that it gave an extra fillip. The challenges I have to tackle are lifelong, and I haven’t even half succeeded. I don’t know if you want to read this litany of woes, but if you do, I will appreciate your kind soul because writing this post will be my logotherapy for the broken heart and wounded soul.
I have zero tolerance for incivility and any offenses that others regard as insignificant because I take it as a disrespect of my existence. In the office, the majority of them speak Spanish even if they were born here in the States. I am the only Asian, and more particularly Korean, so they always treat me as if I were invisible. They may act politically correct or pretend not to exclude me, even if I try to be as friendly as possible and am always courteous, offering help they don’t appreciate. So I resign to aloneness and hopelessness in the crowds, withdrawing myself from their circle of sociability. How would you feel when everyone says hi to each other but you when they know you are there? Doesn’t My Life Also Matter?
My other challenge is to be too soft-hearted, growing no apples of wrath for those who hurt me with acrid remarks and unkind gestures. Although my furies will arise from slumber when provoked, if the instigators show moments of human weakness or even an instant ray of warmth or kindness, they will retreat with steps back until they return to Valhalla.
This morning’s episode was an excellent example of this topic. After a morning mass for the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there was a communal breakfast prepared by the church ladies. I stood in a line to bring food for my mom, who had taken seats in advance. Then, these old ladies dressed up nicely cut the line in front of me with the friendliest faces! My indignation burst out, so I asked them how they could be so sneaky when we all had just heard the mass with the Holy Communions. They apologized to me but didn’t bother to go back on the line. I was inwardly crying over the fact that these people disrespected me, and I fell to the pit of sorrow ever again.
People say to love thyself to be loved, but that’s impossible because humans are, by nature, political animals, as Aristotle said. We don’t live alone and shape our perceptions of ourselves mostly from what others see us. It’s called a “Looking-Glassed Self,” a theory of sociology coined by Robert Cooley. Thus, I feel I was born in the wrong place under the wrong circumstances. Many claim they are ugly ducklings, swans among ducks, but I believe I am the one. Hercules’s Twelve Labors seems pale in comparison with my most demanding challenges in life.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 