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

Tag: journal

  • 🐾 Understanding Cats as Mirrors of My Soul

    They say pets reflect the personalities of those who care for them. The way they respond to others and express their feelings seems to mirror how they’re treated at home—or perhaps how their owners reveal the rawness of human emotion, unfiltered and instinctive.

    My two cats, Toro and Camille, mirror my ego and superego, respectively. Toro is a sensitive soul, easily shaken by the outside world and never shy about his emotions, almost like a little human. Camille, in contrast, is calm and observant. He watches me in silence, as though he sees through to the very center of me. At times, I think of Toro as the General Cat from Cat’s Eye, and Camille as Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service.

    Sometimes, I wonder if they are the little brother and sister who were never born—that they somehow returned in fur and paws to be near me… and, strangely, near my mother, who once chose not to bring them into the world.

    Whenever they curl beside me, their small hearts pulsing gently against mine, I feel the wonder of life swell within me—a quiet awe at its vividness, like a tide of feeling stirred with reverence for the mystery of creation, and the One who makes all things beautiful.

    Rudyard Kipling once said that a cat walks by himself. But perhaps he never met mine.

    Whatever happens, they are my familiars—silent witnesses and gentle companions, walking beside me through this strange and lovely journey of life.

  • The Poignant Loss: A Reflection on Absence

    I never stood beside him.

    Nor did my eyes ever meet his.

    But when I heard he was gone—

    forever, yesterday—

    a strange sadness fell upon me,

    like dusk after the sun has set.

    One soul less in the world,

    and silence filled the void.

    We will never see him again.

    His voice and face are lost to us,

    like an old photograph of the beloved

    set quietly aflame.

  • Prompt 217 – things i took for granted

    What’s a part of my daily life that I often take for granted?
    I have begun noticing things I took for granted before, such as the following:

    1. Waking up every morning: I now realize that night is when our bodies either revolt or rest while we sleep. I may never open my eyes to meet a new day. And especially right now, I am going through the pains of the internal organs that seem to be worsened the following day; I am grateful for finding myself greeting a new morning.

    2. Living with Mom, however difficult it is: Although I sometimes want to live alone with my cats in a small but nice apartment, I cannot imagine not having anyone to talk to all day long and for the rest of my life—at least for now. I am just not prepared to live without Mom.

    3. Eating – it is proof that my body is still operational despite the problems inside of my body. I am scared to death for a diagnosis that I will get after the physical scheduled for next Friday. Still, I can eat now.

    I now know why some people want to trade their souls with vampires to gain external youth – the prime of health and beauty. So, I am considering accepting the law of nature, as Cicero said, because if we reject it, we ask for trouble. That said, appreciating simple, small things that I used to overlook while retaining graceful poise and becoming where I am now is probably the best and wisest thing to do. Or so I should think.

  • prompt 216

    Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

    Sound: My cats’ pleading sounds, especially Toro’s, for paying attention to them while I was WFH until 7:00 pm today. No matter how hard I tried to ignore them all the time, it was impossible because I simply couldn’t. Then there’s mom’s ever-neurotic shrieking for my letting the cats out to the living room, which is her domain. I am getting crazier and crazier by day.

    Smell: Mon Paris by Yves Saint Laurent. I got the smallest size of the lovely perfume from a Sephora store that happened to be an hour away from home. I ordered it online yesterday for the same day delivery. Anyway, I got it, and it smelled lovely. It makes me feel like I am a beautiful sultry French chic. Plus, it’s cheaper than Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle, which I will get in the future.

    Taste: I had Coffee-Flavored Hagen-Daz ice cream during an afternoon break. It’s both proportionally and favorably perfect. Small but fulfilling. I used to be biased against the brand because I thought it was overhyped, but as I get older, I like the flavor, which pleases my taste buds.

    It was a long day for me. I prefer WFH to WFO even amid the cacophony of my cats’ caterwauling and mom’s shrieking because working in such a small office with people half my age gives me an awkward vibe, and I believe they will feel the same way. I think I am wired to be alone. Good-hearted but socially gauche. Anyway, tomorrow is WFO ! But I have no choice of obeying it because if I don;t go there, Alan will complain about handling the incoming mail by himself, which will be rolled into a bid snowball of criticism about my not keeping commitment to WFO two days a week. Nevertheless, I hate going to the office.

  • Pucker

    I once dreamed of dreams
    Traveling the cities
    with stories from the past
    to the present in all spades
    by the seas thru the waves;
    Now all plucker in the mirage
    reflected in the mind windows
    as the streams of time flow
    letting them go now and never.

  • 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.