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

Tag: essay

  • Prompt 33 – why cats are women’s best friends

    What are your favorite animals?

    One and a half years old Camille

    Rudyard Kipling described the nature of a cat as a creature that walked alone. The graceful pose, the noble demeanor, and the aristocratic solitude make the feline kind all the more mysterious and charming. Cats are so loving and, at the same time, so selfish, which makes them exuberantly human. It is no wonder the ancient Egyptians turned them into goddesses Bastet for womenkind. To make the long story short, the association of cats with women is natural and inseparable as if the two kinds are supra-natural companions.

    Three years old Toro

    The feline imagery has been complimentary and cautionary depending on the purpose of its application to societal conventions. For example, black cats are typically associated with devious single women practicing witchcraft (or, for God’s sake, cantankerous spinsters) because of their formidable ambiance of darkness, which significantly contrasts with their wonderfully fierce eyes and quiet solitude. While feminists would disagree with the application of such feline imagery to femininity (“How could you use such a demeaning word?!”), one can’t eradicate the visible traits that are so unlike their counterparts, including the canine. The coquettishness of feline characters and the capriciousness of behavior conjures the images of Cleopatra charming Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, and the like. And what about Michelle Pilfer’s Cattleman? Then there were Charlotte Bronte and Lucy Maud Montgomery, whose feminine sensibilities were replete with fiercely independent creative spirits, and the fascinating power of words still mesmerized the readers of her times and ours. They were lovers of cats, and their best friends were cats who could share secrets because cats were the only true secret keepers.

    Tori and Camille

    Some people seem to take pride in publicly announcing their dislike of cats as if there were some virtue in doing it. They say cats are treacherous and capricious. But that is precisely why I like cats because, like us, when they are good, they are very, very good. Yet when they are bad, they are horrid. I never get bored with my two cats, Toro and Camille, because they are very responsive to my talking by vocalizing their needs when they want to play, go out to the living room, and eat. But you know what? They are also my best friends who always stay with me, even when I am blue and gray under dark spells.

  • Prompt 32

    If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?

    I would like to meet Jane Austen, George Eliot, Mary Seacole, and Francis Barber, whose backgrounds and personal aspects interest me not as celebrities but as persons from my knowledge of their extraordinary lives birthing from the ordinary milieu.

    1. Jane Austen – Today, Austen is one of the most revered writers of world literature worldwide. But her novels were not regarded as a lofty tome of literature in terms of academic value in her days. Austen was not of blue stockings, but a woman attending the household cares that feminists call drudgery. She took care of her elderly father, and writing was a means of her creative outlet to express herself. Also, she was weak at spelling, just as Leo Tolstoy was. (What a relief that perfect grammarians are not necessarily great authors!) She was also unmarried, so she and I would have many things to discuss as a single woman taking care of her family with a love of writing.

    2. George Eliot – a great intellectual writer, Eliot used to churn butter out of milking the cows on her family farm. But her family denied it because it would mar her image of an intellectual as if doing chores were considered unfit for a woman of her literary status. She was a strong-minded, independent-willed woman with the power of words to compensate for her lack of physical beauty.

    3. Mary Seacole – I want to ask her how she upheld her confidence and determination to care for the wounded soldiers during the Crimean War after Florence Nightingale rejected her application to volunteer for her Nurse Corps. Her love of humanity and keen observation of societal norms and behaviors have impressed me, and I want to ask her for a word of advice.

    4. Francis Barber – Born into slavery in Jamaica, Barber was a loyal servant of English essayist and author of A Dictionary of the English Language, who took him under his protection against racial injustice and mistreatment. Johnson even bequeathed him a small fortune after his death, so Barber set up his small business and started a family with an English woman. His descendants still live in Lichfield, England. I want to meet him and ask him about what Johnson was really like – as it is the best way to know the character of one’s boss – and how his life became after the death of his master in the time when the blacks on the British Isles were conspicuously existent in small numbers. Was he treated like his counterpart in the U.S.?

    It would be best never to meet your heroes or idols in real life because you will be disappointed with their actual characters. But my list of people will not be a disappointment because they were not from the highest estate of the ether and seem approachable and relatable. Or so I should think.

  • ‘Trail of Crumbs’ by Sunee Kim – Book Review

    I first learned of the author from a Korean television documentary about her search for a natural mother in Korea. A successful food editor of a cultural magazine and a writer, Kim returned to the land with the tears of the past and the hope for the future in realizing her ideal figure for the unconditional love she longed for, which piqued me to read this book to know more about her story, hoping to acquaint another kindred spirit.

    So I hoped it was, but her story betrayed my hope. It was about her affair of the heart with the CEO of a famous French beauty product, L’Occidante. Kim seems to have the magic power of charming men – the higher and the smarter – without effort, and she’s never alone, although she wants to think she is. She has never been in poverty of love, money, and opportunity, yet she complains about a lack of love and total freedom. Her parents, who adopted her, have taken care of her, and her sister is also a Korean adoptee. They may not be perfect, but no one is perfect, and they certainly didn’t burden her with the weight of economic support or, worse, the total abandonment that happens to some of the other adopted children. And that’s not it. Kim always escapes from the responsibility of love when the further half showers with love and warms her with kindness. You can’t treat love as it is a business deal. Unconditional love is altruistic and agape. Love is giving and sharing, not owning and demanding. A sense of abandonment envelops Kim like a wandering ghost wailing in perceptual disappointment and howling in forever resentment. Ultimately, Kim finds herself alone, and it’s too late to regret the ancient bliss of love.

    To think that jealousy resulted in such an acrid train of thought is to miss the accurate impression of my heart on the narrative itself. My power of empathy wallowed in the sympathy of humanity and propelled me to read it, in addition to the Korean heritage the author and I shared. The tears I saw from the program pleading for help to find her natural mother in Korea were heartfelt, so I wanted to hear the cry from the heart to know about the death and breadth of her soul. Yet, her story resonates with the outcry of her never-ending angst and constant chasing of mirages springing from the imaginary ideal of love.

  • Prompt 31

    What principles define how you live?

    Ask any acclaimed mountaineers, such as Edmund Hillary and Reinhold Messner, why and how they climbed up the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. Their answers were simple: there was a mountain to climb, and they had to move forward. Likewise, here are my life’s three guides: imagination, creativity, and hope that accompany me in this life’s journey.

    I am a figure of paradoxes, contrasting light with dark, ideal and worldly, bright and melancholy. I see myself trapped in the Labyrinth of Crete, where the Minotaur lurks in the corner of the maze, waiting to ambush, yearning to eat me. (It is more poetic than being lost in a level of the dreadful Backrooms, as it were.) Normal is not default, and insecurity constantly stalks me like a haunting revenant, resisting departing this world that it longs to remain for an unfinished business. And yet, there is always this impalpable, mysterious sense of what-if flickering in its iridescent halo from a distance. So, I follow the light, walk forward, and never look back because moving forward keeps me alive. Didn’t Stephen Hawking also collaborate with it by saying that it is possible for humans to travel to the future but impossible to return to the past?

    Creativity is essential because it gives a sense of existence, of what it means to be a human. Viktor E. Frankl said three values shape a meaningful life, which are creative value, experiential value, and attitudinal value. I enjoy appreciating the artistic works of others and learning to accept who I am. But I am also delighted in creating my own creations, however good or bad they may be. Writing is such a means of expression by which I can express myself. It is fearful of disappearing like a speck of the world, and I am not nothing.

    I can imagine myself one day arriving as an acclaimed memoirist, diarist, or essayist. Novels are not my forte because I can’t write things I pretend to be or know. That is why I prefer reading nonfiction, and I like to think that I can write it well.

    Thus are my principles – or, more fittingly, my guides – in life. I am a Dante who imagines, a Virgil who creates, and a Beatrice who hopes through life’s journey.

  • To Beloved

    Dear Toro and Camille,

    The words I am writing in this letter to you are the voice from my words, and I am addressing your soul’s heart to heart. I know you may not understand the complexities of human language, but my heart and soul are the basics of the words, and I know you will understand what I am trying to say anyway…

    Camille

    I am so sorry that I can’t provide you with the ideal environment for both of you, my sweet darlings, in my present situation. You know that I can’t let you out of our little bedroom whenever you want to go to the living room where the mother stays. She doesn’t like you to be around because she is jealous of my love for you. But she refuses to know that she loves me, not because she never does and has always been unkind to her only daughter. She is not evil but an ill person inside and outside due to her unspoken history of mental illness. I know it, but it’s a taboo that her family wouldn’t disclose. I know this because I am very keen on psychology based on human behaviors. I think you have already sensed it with your supernatural feline senses. What a fate!

    Toro

    When I utter a cry of fate, my soul cries at my fate of being unable to give you the necessary environment to thrive as happy cats. Of course, I always bring you to the doctor when you show symptoms of bodily discomfort, however slight they may be. But when I see my brother’s and cousin’s cats happily and freely roaming around their lovely homes, my heart breaks, and my soul cries inwardly and outwardly. How much I love you guys so much! Toro, you have been with me in every moment of my darkness and occasional lightness. You are always with me when life is unkind to me with the cold shoulders and icy glances. How comforting to stroke your cushy furs through my fingers lying next to me! You are my faithful companion. And Camille, since you came to me, your sweet purrs and meows have consoled my wretched soul. You are such a sweet soul. To people who believe animals have no souls, I defy to see their eyes straightly and speak to them softly that you love them! They know they are loved, and I know my darlings realize it! They know I am sad and happy. They are my only friends in this cold world.

    So, I am asking you to hold on to hope that someday we will live in a lovely home where you can freely and happily roam around, run around all the rooms and floors, cajoling and frolicking to your content and being yourselves. Therefore, I wonder if you want me to accept Brother Joe’s proposal to move to Korea and live in his luxurious apartment with a spacious loft for you and me to live comfortably. What do you think? You think it’s okay?

    Doubt that the stars fall from the sky. Doubt that the sea is blue.
    Doubt night becomes day. But never doubt I love you.

    All my love,
    Stephanie

  • Prompt 30

    What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

    Dear Reader,

    After a long and tiring day at work, I look back today and regret not doing things the way I wanted – yet again. Since I spend more time in an office full of strangers with nothing in common with me other than working for the same employer, reflecting on today’s memories and actions brings me a feeling of sorrow and sympathy. It’s always this matter of diplomacy of interacting with others without offending them, which is what I should pay more attention to.

    The art of social interaction is hard enough for me to achieve without having a poker face or a public mask – persona. I have seen people who ingratiate themselves with those whom they regard as socially beneficial and politically influential. I see them, all of whom are women, but I don’t see beauty in their visages, nor their minds and hearts. Those able-bodied, fair-weathered friends or sycophants are unashamed of their deeds, acting as if they were all above others, thinking themselves better than others.

    Not that I begrudge them such a skill of flattering, but I realize that having the diplomatic forte may help me to live a more comfortable life for me and my two beautiful cats. Indeed, smile is the best global language where no spoken words are required. I can smile and smile beautifully, but my beautiful smile is unrelated to currying favor from the powers that be, so to speak. Still, it would work wonders if I could pay more attention to my facial expression and the whole demeanor of my body in a polished way so people would not be rude to me.

    My wish is someone’s daily life or just a fancy, but it is still my wish to induce a good impression on me, no matter where you are from.

    Good night. Carpe Diem!