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

Tag: blogs

  • At the Harbour, Before I Know the Story

    Reading Day — Thursday, August 13th, 2026

    On Elizabeth Taylor’s A View of the Harbour

    My first time in the harbour: at the dock, standing in the sea breeze. English air. An unfamiliar coast, oddly familiar. But this is not a book about the cozy English sea town in a postcard.

    I have read only the first few pages of the book, and it has already given me its weather and atmosphere. I feel the harbour holding the secrets of the townspeople. I feel the sea carrying the flotsam and jetsam of life quietly and bringing them into the harbour—an always moving inside a never-arrival.

    The characters I have met so far are ordinary in the sense that none of them has that fierce individualism, existential malady, or anything that instantly piques the senses. But people may find pornography in Jane Eyre: the tension, the ache, the desire. They are not spoken but felt. People keep them in the mind, as if giving a voice to the forbidden would desecrate Jane Eyre.

    I think that is what the book wants us to see: what may seem ordinary on the surface, like a calm sea, hides a storm spiraling into a pillar of fury, discordance, and disorientation. I have not yet come to know the characters, except for Prudence, whose two Siamese cats love pushing their small heads against her legs. It is the cats that draw my attention to her, but she seems to have a story to tell as a beautiful young girl who does not act like a beautiful teenage girl.

    Prudence is Prudence: Quaker in name, puritanical in action. But she may turn out to be someone different from what I have seen as I progress through the pages, although I want her to remain as I see her now. I want her to be beautiful without being popular.

    That is life, isn’t it? Change is human, an uninvited grace. You want someone you like to remain the way you know them. That is what I want to know after I complete reading the book.

    The sea will remain the same. The harbour may not.

    — Stephanie Joori Suh

  • emotion bin

    Why do I always feel guilty and remorseful about things I am not wholly responsible for, the faux pas?

    And I have a reason to think so.

    Today, the accounting clerk – more of a delivery guy – was supposed to pick up a returned check from a vendor, but he wasn’t, and the accounting department was behind him by not answering my questions about why he didn’t pick up the check. Did I do something unforgivably or gravely wrong? Was my calling the guy “Hey George” enough to irritate his nerves? But don’t they at the firm call each other “Hey?” Oh, I got it. So they can say hey, but me. It’s not the same, hey. It’s a different hey from mine. I got it.

    Still, it’s a job, and what if someone – and most possibly the guy himself – steals the check and appropriates it to frame me so that I will be fired from the job? I have a valid reason to speculate the scenario: that guy smirks at me and is always happy to ignore me when saying hi and hello, and what’s up to everyone but me. Too sensitive? Of course, when you and he are alone in an elevator, and there’s only radio silence, except for his malicious and vile smirk? Oh, yes, definitely sensitive.

    The check was not returned and is supposedly kept in our desk drawer in the office. I worked from home today, and I asked my colleague in the office to keep it in the drawer. I hope the delivery guy or his kindred accomplice will not do anything malicious to wreak havoc on my career and sanity.

    I am writing this because otherwise, I would feel like I cannot sleep. So, by writing the litany of woes, I hope I can get rid of the evil spells or exorcise demons hell-bent on gripping my soul, dragging me to hell.

  • prompt 58

    Share what you know about the year you were born.

    Photo Credit: Google

    The year I was born was the Year of the Tiger. It says a lot about me. Independent, Loyal, Considerate, Solitary, Inquisitive, and Compassionate. They say a Tiger is a born leader and fit for running a business. Indeed, I am a writer of my own and an independent thinker. But it’s rare to encounter someone with my year and my generation as a whole at work or in public, which I always feel in-between, transitional, liminal, or cruel to be kind, lost even.

    • My mom delivered me by admitting herself into a maternity ward in St Mary’s Hospital in Seoul, Korea, on a snowing wintry evening. Dad was working at the bank, and she didn’t want to interrupt his working time. Mom, being exceptionally devoted to Mother Mary, wanted to deliver her first child at her namesake’s hospital.
    • U.S. President Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency following the Watergate scandal.
    • The first human ancestor Lucy, dated to be 3.2million years old, was discovered in Ethiphia. Lucy is named after a Beatles’s song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” But I still don’t believe she is our huamkind’s ancestor.
    • Hello Kitty came to the world! ❤️ And Forever!

    Consequently, I feel like my generation has become an age of Judge according to Shakesperea’s Seven Stages of Life, whether I’m not too fond of it or not. Denial of the age is asking for trouble against natural law, said Cicero. Of course, there is nothing new under the sun, but the contemporaneous MZ Generation is a different tribe reminiscent of the children’s tribe in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies or Stephen King’s Children of the Corns. Amid the generational waves, I can’t help but think that my generation is those who rescued the stranded children in Lord of the Flies or the couple who tried to save the doomed children of the corns. But no one seems to care about it but to disappear beyond the time. But you know what? We are the survivors of the change from the Metal Age to the Digital Age, and we are yet to be withered and stale.

    From Pinterest

  • prompt 56

    When are you most happy?

    From L to R: Toro and Camille

    Happiness is made of purrs and meows, kneading and cuddling, kisses and hugs, all packaged in striped and black furs with soft-cushioned paws. The happiest of me is when my cats are next to me at home.

    The happiest moments are in the company of my cats, Toro, the Tabby, and Camile, the Puss in Boots. When I go home after work, Toro and Camille greet me at the front door, rub their little heads against my leg, and say, “Mello, (Hello in their language).” My cats also stay on my bed at night while I am sleeping. I often wake up in the middle of the night and see Toro in my arms and Camille at my feet, which is so comforting and warm. Since they became my family, I have dreamed of nightmares or any supernatural scare springing from my mind. It is said that cats have the extraordinary power to ward off evil spirits, and I believe so. My brother had the same experience in Japan where, before adopting his cat, he used to hear someone walking upstairs. Of course, that ceased after the cat became a family.

    Even though Camille has brought me good luck for my present job, I am happier when Toro is beside me. He is such an affectionate cat that I am so happy that we are a family. The veterinanrians love Toro and Camille because they are so sweet and gentle. Love makes happiness, and my cats are love. Happiness is my cats.

  • Prompt 55

    What was the last thing you did for play or fun?

    Title song: “With or Without You” by U2

    Tailwinds, Blueskies…

    Some do birdwatching, some Trainspotting, but mine is planespotting. I went for it last Saturday, and it was such fun that I recorded the event as a video log to preserve the intoxication of the spirit, watching a magnificent view.

    My brother and I went to a park near LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) to watch planes in close-ups because I am always fascinated with magnificent airplanes – not private jets, such as the Cessna -. There’s something about big airplanes with their majestic appearance, like giant whales in the sea skies. Come to think of it, rather than relating planes to birds because of the wings, associating them with whales (for Bowing 747) or dolphins (for Airbuses) is all the more like it because of their streamlined body shapes. I should have become a flight attendant, which would have been perfect to realize my dream of being in the skies.

    At the magnificent view of the airplanes, my heart was racing along the planes like Icarus, who dashed against his father’s warning not to fly close to the sun. I wanted to fly in the skies and go to places I had never been. I bet my yearning was what Icarus must have felt after escaping imprisonment with his father, Daedalus, in the labyrinth in Crete. Planespotting was exhilarating and fun. 🌟

  • Prompt 53

    Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

    My Dad 🤓

    I hate the book title “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” with forthright prejudice against the rule of “Don’t judge the book by its cover.” There’s no such thing as such classification of Dad, but My Dad, Your Dad, or Our Dads, no matter where you come from. My Dad is not rich, and I am not certainly wealthy, but I have a great inheritance from him.

    The dossier unfolds the following legacies: a wealth of knowledge ranging from philosophy to literature, a love of reading and writing, an affinity for seas and sea voyages, and a milk of human kindness. My dad is the best person to talk about various interests, from Socrates to our favorite classic film, the Bicycle Thief, to Palestrina, to Bach, and the subjects or knowledge many people do not know or are not interested in. I am proud of him for being such an erudite man who wears his knowledge with a heart of gold in an unassuming manner.

    My dad is now 85 years old, and I have reached the point where I should prepare for the day he will depart from this world. Honestly, I am both scared of it and disheartened by the fact of our lives. Sometimes, he tells me he is sorry for not having much money for a better living environment, but I am grateful for his great inheritance, which is rare and priceless. ⭐️💫✨