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

Tag: essay

  • prompt 98

    What’s your favorite candy?

    I am all sweetness. I have sweet teeth. Too sweet to discipline, not to be sweet. My darling sweets are Gummies, and chocolates must have sweetness filled with flavors, preferably from Germany.

    Of all gummies, gummy worms are the sweetest. I’m not too fond of worms, but strangely, I am charmed with gummy worms. Nothing macabre or carnivalistic is associated with ritualistic pleasure, but I like its flavor, which tastes particularly delicious to be addictive. The gummy worms from Black Forest are the best. And I like the gummy worms from a market or a sweet store sold by weight. American gummies are the best.

    As for chocolates, my love goes to Milka’s strawberry-filled chocolate bar and Lindt Sport Chocolate bars with flavors. Who says Godiva chocolates are the finest? They are overpriced and overhyped even though they are only chocolates. On the contrary, Milka and Lindt have democratized quality chocolates so everyone can enjoy the delicacy. I may be biased in my preference, but how can it be when it is an empirical opinion?

    My sweet teeth may bear the consequence of my lifelong love affair with sweetness, but I will not forego it to wear a prim and grim face of being freakishly healthy. Because without sweets, the world will be drab and dreary. And I don’t want to grow old without the sweetness in my soul.

  • prompt 96

    Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

    I want to say my ideal whole day is traveling, hiking, getting together with families or writing and reading profusely. That’s what people think the ideal response should be, or it may seem so. But my ideal day is anything but the ideal, far from glamorous, but existential and small.

    My ideal day would be free from duties and obligations as a Daughter and an Employee at home with my cats. That said, my ideal day lasts from Friday evening till Saturday evening, during which I don’t have to do anything but watch movie after movie with intermissions of playing with my babies. It will be perfect if it is raining during the pleasure time, but it has to be when I am home, not outside.

    Ancient Germanic tribes would drink barrels of beer during the lull in battles with the Romans, according to Tacitus. So, this is my way of unwinding the overdosed adrenaline in the mind and spirit.

  • Prompt 95

    Daily writing prompt
    Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.
    View all responses

    On my To-Do List for January 2024, all other plans were crossed out, except for reading the book borrowed from the library and losing weight by dieting and exercising. These boxes are yet to be checked with clear and victorious “V” marks, which makes me feel like Marc Anthony defeated by Julius Ceasar or Napoleon lost to Admiral Nelson.

    I still have 11 days to return The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose, for which five readers are waiting. I have already downloaded it on my Kindle, and I check the due date daily like a condemned in a dungeon. My spirit is indeed willing for intellectual stimuli. Alas, the sensory pleasure always wins with the temptation of moving images and vibrant audio in the form of YouTube, Amazon Prime, and NetFlix when I am home.

    As for losing weight, it has become a red herring I never thought I would have when I was on the East Coast. Not that I am obese, but I have gained weight since I moved here to Los Angeles. Blame the food and lack of discipline. But this place has a strange spell to make people gain weight because I have heard similar complaints about being adipose from people moving to Southern California, especially LA. Every place has its own aura or vibe, and this place has an atmosphere that prompts people to test their taste buds to the extent possible. Since eating affects losing and gaining weight more than exercising, before going to the gym, which I hardly go to these days, I need to curtail snacks and dinner after 6:00 pm.

    Here comes Mr. Artistole again: You are what you repeatedly do. Therefore, excellence is not a performance but a habit. There’s no shortcut to achieving my and your goals – even in this advanced 21st century where Elon Musk says we will all have chips on our brains and travel to Mars. So, I have to carry the unresolved plans to this month because I don’t want to pine away for lamenting and regretting any longer.

  • Prompt 50

    What cities do you want to visit?

    Cities are a symbol of civilization and well of culture. It’s cosmopolitan and utilitarian in that all social classes mingle and become a parliament of humanity. I prefer cities to the lesser versions of human dwellings because of these reasons, and there are cities I want to visit on my bucket list.

    Rome – Built by the Rolumus and Lemus, bred by a wolf mother, Rome was an eternal city with boundaries stretching from the east and the west, the North and the south. All roads led to Rome, and I want to walk down the same streets that ancient Romans trod upon with their own stories. So much so that Edgar Allen Poe summarized Rome thus: “The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.” People say that today’s Rome is nothing like ancient Rome, but they don’t see that the place memories enveloping the city’s aura are lingering, affecting the minds of the people living or visiting there. Thousand years have passed, but the spirit of the place is immortal.

    Vatican City – My primary purpose will be seeing Michelangelo’s magnum opus on the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel. Reading Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King has egged me on to witness the magnum force of art as a manifestation of the ideal appreciated by the faculty of the mind affected by imagination. It would have been much more wonderful to visit Vatican City when Pope John Paul Second was the Bishop of Rome.

    Other cities have histories of millennium years, but Rome and Vatican City still exist with vivacity and alacrity. They may be crowded, expensive, and trivialized, but they were, have been, and will be so in posterity. This also makes me think that our posterity might feel the same way about the places where we live now. Hence are my wishful cities. 🧚‍♀️⭐️🌍

  • Prompt 48

    Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

    Toro Then 🌸

    I can never forget the first time I adopted my first cat, Toro, from an animal shelter when I moved from New Jersey to California in 2018.

    I still remember the first day I saw Toro, who was nine weeks old, at Ventura Animal Shelter in Camarillo, CA, where I lived for the first time in California. They say it’s not you who chooses your cat; your cat chooses you. It is only true because when my brother and I approached the sheltered cats, Toro came to us with his tiny paw, trying to touch our fingers through the compartment’s opening. He was playful, curious, and affectionate. While waiting for my brother to finish the adoption process inside, I could never forget Toro’s eyes becoming curiouser and curiouser at me from the cardboard carrier, full of wonder about the new world.

    I still treasure the first time I met Toro, now three years old. I feel his little heart when he climbs on my back and shoulder, and I am glad it’s not a dream. 🌻💕💫🧚‍♀️

    Toro Now 🌼

    P.S. Something went wrong with my prompt posted earlier today; it was uploaded but then disappeared 🤨 Hence, this is a repost of today’s daily prompt. Sorry for the readers whose likes went with the post🐱

  • Prompt 44

    What’s your favorite cartoon?

    Cartoons and animations are different. Cartoons are thematically episodic and satirical. Animations are a superb vehicle for realizing the ideal to the real that human actors could have awkwardly contrived. Animations effortlessly manifest feelings and emotions to the maximum effect. Hence, my favorite animations. 😃

    The Adventure of Sinbad: A story of young sailor Shinbad who decides to see the world with his sidekick Sarah, a bespelled princess in a bird’s hide. The opening song is still my number-one cartoon song of all time.

    Anne of Green Gables, aka the red-haired Anne: This is the most faithful adaptation of the original novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery. This is one of the first animated films by Hayao Miyazaki during his time with Nippon Animation’s World Masterpiece Theater. Hayao and other artists who created this brilliant animated version traveled to Prince Edward Island and visited the story’s original setting. So, watching this animation alone will amount to reading the novel.

    Kiki’s Delivery Service: Not every witch looks the same with a sullen face and unapproachable ambiance. Kiki is an unlikely witch in training who prepares herself to enter adulthood by moving with her black cat Jiji away from her beloved family and settling in a coastal city. She gets a job as an assistant at a bakery, delivering customers’ orders on a broom with Jigi. It’s a charming and thoughtful coming-of-age animation. Moreover, Kiki and I have things in common, such as similar temperaments, looks, and, most of all, our black cats.

    Howl’s Moving Castle: The original story by Diana Wynn Jones is fantastically transpired by Hayao Miyazaki and his artists in this unforgettably mesmeric animated screenplay. Love is ubiquitous and universal. Forgiveness is abundant, and Magic is real. I am sure the original novel’s author would love to see this stunning visualization of her creation of the make-believe world with a standing ovation. Lost in translation? Not an iota.😉

    My Camille

    In light of the above, I prefer animation translated from novels made by Japanese artists because they are skilled in detailing the characters and backgrounds of stories based upon the study of the original stories empowered by a wide arch of imaginativeness. 🤓✨🧚‍♀️