The light of the star
Wins of the dark earth
And covers the manger
With the rays of mirth.
Tag: literature
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my life with a cat so far
The period of four months can be long or short, depending upon how you feel it, and to me, it amounts to a long time that has changed my life in every possible way akin to an epoch of revolution. My life with an orphaned kitten named Toro has become a fugue of meows and voices in multiple strands of more meows and voices that has no coda.
During the four months, Toro and I had anfractuous moments made of frequent visits to different veterinarians, displays of whims and caprice on both sides, tears and smiles, frustration and understanding, doubts and hopes, wishes and disappointments, all of which are crystallized into a virtue of acceptance. I still cannot believe that I have a cat when I still have a weakness for more domesticated, more trainable, and more approachable canine breeds. This doubt develops into a sense of guilt, a whirlpool of self-criticism of not being good enough to be a loving owner of Toro, who is particularly in need of love and kindness due to his sensitive nature and suspected traumatic postnatal experience. Those educative textual and visual information on raising cats dissipates into a gray area of reality and stay there amid my trials and errors in the course of being a terrific guardian whom Toro wishes to live with. Does Toro want to live with another owner who can make him happy in a bigger house where he can run like his wild ancestors or cousins in nature with his new playmates? I ask Toro, but he returns me with that pensive glance and grooms himself like nothing more is necessary than licking his legs and rectum.
My mother still wants me to return Toro to the shelter because his burst of pep and temper is unprecedentedly unbridled and insurmountable to be caught up with. Then I read other cat owners’ stories and watch their YouTube channels only to make parallels to their blissful lives with their cats and to descend to the labyrinth of gloom and sorrow without an exit. My previous post about my precipitated proclamation of a mutually beneficiary feeling of dependency becomes a public humiliation, a textual pillory of an incompetent cat owner who has no idea about the animal that does not like to be with her the first place. Or so it seems. Alas, woe to the one whose head is whirled like a potter’s wheel in the vortex of confusion, illusion, and discord in a da capo.
Notwithstanding all of the above, one thing is sure that Toro’s wellbeing, both mentally and physically, is what I care about the most. I have taken him to three different vets so far due to his frequent diarrhea, constipation, and anal pain repeating like Bach’s Toccata. Even if Toro may indeed secretly entertains a wish to meet a new ideal owner, I want to take care of him as much as I can to the fullest extent within my capabilities because I care about him and want to be happy together. His little heartbeat I feel in my hand and when he sleeps at my feet is the most precious thing I treasure that empowers me with a sense of purpose that I have a life depending on me.
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Pretender
For those colorful charms,
Those dazzling deeds,
Those sweet smiles,
Those thousand praises –
He is what he is not,
Clothed in all those
Goodly falsehoods.
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My letter to the editor got published – again!
Reading the history of ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Western Civilization, in general, gives me mental refreshment. It connects me to the people who lived before me, crossing over the boundaries of time and territories. So, it was a pleasant present after a day’s work when Mom handed over to me a Christmas issue of the BBC History Revealed magazine that had arrived at home. To my delight, I saw in the magazine my letter to the editor about my questions on the hypothetical consequence of the successful gunpowder plot, which is best known for the Guy Fawkes Day in the U.K. The following is the transcription of my published letter, which is titled “Food for Thought.” In fact, this is the 6th time that the magazine has published my letters! Wow!
“The interesting scenario about what might have happened had the gunpowder plot been successful in England in 1605 made me think of its hypothetical impacts on the birth of the United States of America and its culture.
The conjecture that the restoration of Catholicity in England would have resulted in the earlier flux of protestant immigration to the States was particularly intriguing and eye-opening in a religious and cultural context.
It also led me to wonder about the following questions: what would Catholic England’s policy have been toward its Spanish ally in the expedition of the New World, principally, including America? Could the New World have been the only choice of the exodus of the English protestants? Could Spanish have become the official language of the States?”
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wheel of fate
She untangles the threads
from Ariadne’s Ball
and spins them in strands
of lovely colors onto the Wheel
of Fate holding Pandora’s Box
she has purloined from gods
to weave them into a new fate.
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aeolian whisper
Road in a beautiful forest in the morning Into the Alpine Path
so winding, so unknown,
A breeze brings mirth
With aeolian melodies
In whispering pianissimo
thru the leaves of the trees
And transfixes the flows
Of time and beauty of youth
Wantoning freely in ecstasy
Sparkling like new hope.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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