The haze of the great fires lingers beneath the evening sun in soft sunshine shadows; Every shadow sheds tears on the dust of the memories Windswept in allwhither.
P.S.: Today, during the mass, the priest said some parishioners lost their homes due to the Great Fire this week and could not attend the mass. Presumably, they should live in Pasadena, about 15 minutes from where I live in the heart of Los Angeles, CA. It reminded me of the Great Fire of London (09/02/1666 to 09/06/1666), which was said to result from a fire in a bakery in the city. I have never seen anything to that effect in my life. I can still smell the burning, and the ashes from the fires scatter around the city. I hope those affected by the fires will have the care and help they need promptly and effectively.
a-ha from left Magne Furuholmen (Keyboards), Morten Harket (Vocals), and Pal Waaktaar-Savoy (Guitars)
After the two years beneath the gray clouds of the pandemic, a-ha came to town with the halos of seasoned veteran wizards of pop music. They entered the world’s music scene like brilliant comets four decades ago with the catchy hit ‘Take on Me’ and continued to travel into the universe all the more brilliantly over time. Indeed, age could not wither them away, nor custom could stale their musical alchemy.
With the opening song ‘Sycamore Leaves’ with its characteristic guitar riffs and heavy drum beats, a-ha came on the stage. The fans were instantly enchanted by their charismatic appearances, like the Three Musketeers of Pop. Magne Furuholmen (Keyboards), Morten Harket (Vocals), and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (Guitars) were now veterans of the music industry. They were all methodically professional and effortlessly entertaining to present what the fans wanted the most by coming to their concert after two bleak lockdown years. They gave all they got by mainly playing the songs from the first and second albums because those two albums were best known and loved by their US-based fans. The result was the touchy-feely, feel-good atmosphere of the concert. Viktor E. Frankl, the father of Logotherapy, acknowledged that the moments of pleasure in appreciating arts equal the happiness in finding the meaning of life. That night at the Wiltern, a-ha gave the happy moments of life to their fans as their music pleased our senses and sensibilities, allying our passion for what our existential life outside the concert hall had brought to us just for the moments.
Music is the most potent magic in conjuring up the memories in the phantasmagorical display of images of the misty past, vivid and vital, all adrift then aglow in condensed particular energy, becoming nostalgia in the sweet melancholy of romantic solitude manifested in the music of a-ha. Looking at the audience, I thought that we all came to go back to our days of innocence when the pleasure of listening to a-ha’s music on the radio and records required no dreadful existential worries of the world. That night at the Wiltern, a-ha transported us back to our memory lane in the soft sweet melodies of the past and then to the present, lingering in the heart’s windows and staying in its garden forever with the triumphant ‘Take on Me’ ending on a high note in the encore.
A beautiful field of flowers on a background of mountains and clouds
It was a great leap from northern New Jersey to southern California when I decided to relocate two years ago. At that time, I felt like a pioneer girl from Willa Cather’s novel or a Horace Greeley in his Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco. Now the not-so-long time has passed, and I still have the job I got first in California, but I am now not sure about being rooted here like a tree without luscious fruits, which is just one of many plain, common trees whose sudden absence will not be conspicuous. Amid in this existential tides of life, willful, fateful, or both perhaps, reading today’s article from the New York Times about a declining trend of relocation after the ease of Pandemic-related restrictions statewide seems to shake my already shaking ship adrift between Scylla and Charybdis.
The article reports that now that the post-Covid 19 has dawned a new era of remote-controlled employment, many people do not need to move to another state for their new jobs unless they are packaged with satisfying relocation fees. And staying put in their home grounds while working remotely for their bosses across the Rocky mountain or on the other side of the coast fortifies a sense of close-knit family and community that they feel strongly related and belonging by staying put in their home grounds. Further, the article illustrates a particular fragment of well-to-do middle-class people with professional careers or executive positions who indeed don’t have to take trouble moving their already content families to new locations. Finally, the article excludes the peripheral class that orbits around the lesser bright solar system whose life spans depend on a dominant sun’s brilliance.
People are still moving to and from for their uncertain futures, as I have witnessed so far, despite the Pandemic scare less than the existential threats of daily life. Hasn’t the journalist seen enough of the genuine fabrics of life by getting on a morning bus carrying a crowd of the middlings and underlings heading for their workplaces? Isn’t The New York Times proud of being one of the most liberal newspapers in the world? Or is it for most liberal middle-class only?
I still like to think of myself as a frontier woman in the Still Wild West, living with an elderly mother and an eleven-month-old tabby cat with chronically weak respiratory and digestive systems in a make-shift house on a pitiful homestead often besieged by the lawless and the uncultured. And I still don’t know my decision to move from here to there was a fool’s wish, acting on a foolhardy impulse neverendingly. Nevertheless, I want that all that wise sayings about hope and courage are truth and nothing but the truth, and I am sure that many people share similar kinds of wishes in the courses of their lives that today’s article excludes.
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary,” said Thomas More, who died for his relentless faith despite Henry VIII’s promise of honor he would confer on to his most trusted counsel in his cabinet. Samuel Johnson also confirmed that faith required no byzantine theories or philosophy for the validity of truth. Until I attended a public Sunday mass in a parking lot yesterday, I had not realized the power of faith, which I doubted I still had in my heart.
The beautiful liturgy of the mass, which culminated in the Eucharist, was akin to a flowing of streams of life to the eyes of a seasick seaman and the thirst of a weary traveler. I had never expected such exaltation of the soul with faith disappearing into an abyss of despondency populated with a school of doubt, disbelief, and frustration nurtured in a reality of everyday life. But while listening to a priest’s sermon based on the reading of Matthew 25:31-46, which is about the importance of practicing faith into actions, especially by sharing milk of human kindness with people you feel least likable or unkindest.
The priest further asked if we would counsel with God in making decisions in life or just about anything needful of help. No one answered yes because let’s face it, we regard such tendency to recourse to God as a derogatorily medieval way of living life in this Digital Age of Artificial Intelligence. We try to reason our faith with the validity of practical truth and willfully turn our heads from the Gospel with the usual facade of “Religion has nothing to do with it.” But then can you also prove that we are nothing but of a highly complex living organism made of accidental atoms, sans souls? What is the feeling that urges you to search for meaning in life, our sense of purpose? Can atoms do it?
It is my wholly solipsistic reflection of hearing mass, but now I feel like finding Ariadne’s Thread in the labyrinth to find a way out on this last day of the church calendar. What a feeling. Peace to be with you, and God bless you all.
It may sound funny but finding a good veterinarian seems parallel to Perseus’s finding the Hesperides’ whereabouts, the nymphs holding the weapons for destroying Medusa, as instructed by goddess Athene. The half-god and half-human Perseus had divine help from the goddess to accomplish his terrific mission. Still, the whole human Me, left with my limited mortal device, had to embark alone on a daunting quest for a competently proficient veterinarian who could precisely ascertain the cause of my cat’s gastrointestinal malady with the utmost professionalism and most profound care for animals. So, I want to relate my journey to arrive at the mission accomplished to Hercules’s Twelve labors to fulfill his moral responsibility for the beloved he had slain.
Toro’s Arrival at the Hospital in Tote
No, not that I harmed my little sixteen-week old Toro. How despicable! But that he had been suffering from irregular bowel syndrome, aka constipation. Although well-potty trained, Toro had difficulty in releasing excrement completely with heartwrenching yowling, resulting in inappropriate elimination everywhere in my room. As his human caretaker/sister/mother, the onus of relieving him from the pain was naturally on me with an initial frustration of finding the panacea. In a new city with no acquaintance to recommend me an expert on cats, I looked up a list of veterinarians nearby on the Internet, mostly Yelps and Googles’ reviews. As a follower of Thuclyclides on hearsay’s integrity, not on the popularity of the subject from the masses, I eliminated the superfluously effusive complements of reviews suspected of blind bromides advertised by sponsored reviewers. I followed my instinct that led me to a particular veterinarian with less florid advertisements and more evidentiary results of curing cats, one of whom looked a lot like Toro. What can I say? It was more of my intuition, leading me to take Toro to the veterinarian of my choice.
Toro’s X-Ray reveals his inner world, including a microchip
The doctor listened to my plea for examining Toro thoroughly with his entire medical history obtained at his adoption from a shelter. He took Toro’s X-ray and explained that it was constipation and that he would inject enema to release due eliminations from his stomach. I was also given a bottle of lactulose solution to be administered to Toro orally three times a day. Besides, he gave me a bottle of Betagen topical spray for Toro’s infected buttocks due to the remnants of dried defecation, free of charge. It was certainly more than I expected of the care, now that the cause of the sickness had already been precisely diagnosed and adequately remedied.
What an adventure I had today!
Toro is now easily defecating in the letterbox. However, he seems to be a bit lethargic due to the oral solution that I have been injecting to him, which is a challenging task every time because of his apparent dislike. But Toro knows that he feels better now than before, so I guess he takes his medication as a daily ritual until the solution is finished. At the moment of writing, Toro is sleeping sweetly on the books shelved on my desk, and looking at him produces a phantasmagorical display of images of all things loving and caring and comforting I have seen from paintings and movies. Would this be the same kind of feeling when God sees his creatures made in love? It may be a bit of stretch, but I like the idea of it.
I am a dog person. I like their playful innocence and adorable artlessness. And I still believe all dogs go to heaven because of their innate goodness that brings joy to our overtly complexed human life. Also, dogs and humans have been living together for about 15,000 years as family members. Remember Argos, the loyal dog of Odyssey, who was the only one who recognized his old master in rags and tatters? Also, there were the dogs who saved the lives of soldiers during historical manmade wars in the expanse of their own lives. So, if the circumstances give me the green light, I would love to have a dog at home. Who wouldn’t anyway?
Then, given the express affection toward the canine race, how could my living with a cat be explained? The truth is still a mystery as I still can’t believe I have Toro, an 11-week old male tabby I adopted from a shelter two weeks ago, at home with me all the time except when I am at work. Toro, which is a masculine form of ‘Tora”, meaning a tiger in Japanese, is a curious paradox of a beast; he is a little cutie with lovely big green eyes but shows all the characteristics of a predator just like his wild cousins. Toro shows he will grow into a formidable hunter contrary to his small and thin body with acute audibility and olfaction. Watching Toro playing with toys and the frills at the bottom of my skirts fluttering underneath the chairs, I wonder if Toro will turn out to be a Gremlin one day when I wake up in the morning. But his cuteness dominates fear, and he likes to sit on my laps when he feels like it. Toro seems to have crafted Ovid’s the Art of Love with innately feline caprice and whims turning it into an irresistible magic spell. What a kitty.
Toro and I moved from the pastoral Ventura County to the heart of Los Angeles during the inferno heatwave of the labor weekend. We both suffered a sense of vertigo in new urban surroundings and a little bit quizzical about how we should adopt to smaller spaces in an apartment. Maybe Toro doesn’t like our new den because he does not wake me up by climbing on my back and meowing in the morning any longer. Besides, he seems to suddenly develop attention deficiency by frequently stalking, jumping, scratching, and biting. Worse still, Toro hissed a lot and aloud for the last two days. Although I force myself to think that it’s due to the diabolical heatwave, I cannot stitch up a little hole in my heart to the immaculate condition.
Freud said the time spent with cats is never wasted. I want to believe it even if these days I spend most of the time tending Toro, instead of reading and writing. Certainly, unconditional love toward a living thing is noble and esteemed. Yet the Bard sums my state of mind thus: “Love sought is good but love unsought is better.” Still, there is a long way ahead of us to live according to the natures of our different species. Our inclinations are contralateral as our needs are egotistical for our own ends of the survival of the species. If so, then let it be – with pleasure.
Maybe, I am more feline than my kitten. Who knows? Meow.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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