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

Tag: thoughts

  • Prompt 21

    What is your career plan?

    I always think that a career is for those who have social ambitions to climb up the class ladder or to gain fame, such as professionals or celebrities. As a commoner who works for bare necessities and the accompanying mental equilibrium brought by financial security, I would say the word “job” is unassumingly fitting to me. Hence I will change it to “job plan.”

    My immediate job plan is to pass my ninety days probation period, which will end in early or mid-June of this year at the current job. I am a new Case Manager Assistant at a personal injury law firm where the Spencerian of the survival of the fittest is at its most tacitly manifested and vociferously encouraged. The high turnover rate is famously average, so matter-of-factly typical that it’s like a revolving door of a department store. But the generous pay rate and timely payment compensate for the reign of terror. I have seen many the hungry ocean gains advantage of the kingdom of the shore, and the firm soil wins over the watery main with loss and gain, gain and loss. So if I get paid at a decent pay rate every other Friday, I am content. So, I pray that I will pass the probation period, and that’s all,

    I work hard and well, but I don’t want to become a case manager that is a 24-hour job under stress. I want to be an excellent CMA, competent, efficient, and prompt, and that is my prayer.

  • Prompt 20

    List the people you admire and look to for advice…

    There used to be a section in the New York Times Book Review where an established writer was asked whom they would invite for dinner, alive or dead. So today’s prompt is relevant to the dinner list, (well for me lunch or coffee time list is more fitting) which comprises people I wish to have as wise and pleasant counsel.

    I want to have people who are well-read, open-minded, understanding, cultured, patient, and confident, with a sense of humor devoid of sarcasm. I want them to be older than I am, at the Judge or old stage according to Shakespeare’s seven stages of life, because they have withered the vicissitudes of life to live to tell. Of course, not all mature people are wise. However, still, I would feel more comfortable being in company with them to talk about the woes of life than with MZ generations who regard the preceding ones as something medieval, if not ancient or prehistoric.

    Therapists or counselors are paid to give us advice, but what if you don’t have the resource or are unlucky to meet a good one who can show you precise feedback with a touch of humanity? So I envy those who have people whom they can turn to for wisdom, not criticism under the pretense of grain of salt.

  • Wandering Cat

    The hate fills you with spite
    the heart is a barren desert
    the mind is a desiccated tree
    basked in the heat of hate;
    There’s a cat who walks
    by himself by the proud tree
    and his eyes full of memories
    that once beheld the leaves
    dancing in the breeze of peace;
    He catches in silence at the sight
    by the awe of the forlorn fate
    that wails into a void of ether
    and continues on his wander
    into the end of distant rainbows
    bridging over the skies yonder.

  • Prompt 19

    If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

    I am one of those sentimental folks who tend to make a parallel with themselves to the characters of a story in a book or film due to an uncanny spiritual ability to channel into the psyche of another. Methinks this could be something of an ancient Greek or Roman Sybil, who foretold the prophecies at holy places in ecstatic mania. Accordingly, my choice of avatars is of independent, strong-willed, but mistaken women whom people could not fail to notice out of the melee: Cassandra and Ariadne.

    Cassandra, the daughter of the last king of Troy Priam and his wife Hecuba, was a priestess of the god Apollo, who bestowed the gift of prophecy on her. However, when she refused the god’s amorous advance, the cruel god fated her not to be believed in her predictions. So when Cassandra warned her people of the fall of Troy, they didn’t deign to acknowledge her but to scorn her for such hokum. Alas, poor Cassandra! I knew him, Ariadne, for your beautiful deed and heart was betrayed by Theseus, whom you helped kill Minotaur and save the Athenian youths from the labyrinth! Theseus abandoned his beautiful savior on the island of the Naxos and sailed on to Athens. Why did he forsake her? It’s because the goddess Athena told him that Ariadne would be nothing but a nuisance in his way of constructing her namesake city-state! Before being the sacred and immortal goddess, Athena was also a woman, but how could she force Theseus to bloodlessly forsake the poor Ariadne, whose benevolence saved the youths of Athens?

    Both Cassandra and Ariadne’s benevolence and strong will were not appreciated by those whom they helped or tried to help. What a tragedy it was! Likewise, my heartfelt intention and humanity meet with cold shoulders or the least respect from the people I help and have helped. Sometimes I wonder if nature bestowed beauty on me, would they be unkind or appreciate who I am? Then I think of Cassandra and Ariadne and cannot help but feel for what they had been through.

  • ode to failures

    The sun’s up, and the day’s begun
    The eyes open, the heart chimes
    arise, awake, or forever fallen
    Hoping, achieving, sorrowing
    Try again, or better yet, fail again
    Better worse, alas, still worse
    Worst then, fail worst yet again
    Till ripped apart, broken again
    stumbling, crying, ad naseum
    A circle of life as is the nature
    whatever it is, the spirit’s high
    not made of crude materials
    but born of stars, dews, and fire.

  • Prompt 18

    What job would you do for free?

    I would work for something attending to the welfare of cats pro bono. With All My Soul, All My Might, and All My Spirit. The best place for me to do this is probably in a shelter or a rescue center where I can devote myself to cats needing help with my undivided love for man’s best consort.

    Being a cat person not made of the crude materials of this world, I feel most comfortable with my two cats, Toro and Nero, at home. Who says that cats are aloof and egoistic? Hardly so. Cats are so affectionate and kind and beautiful both externally and internally. Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables, was a cat lover who averred the beauty of the feline folk: “I love them. They are so nice and selfish. Dogs are TOO good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human.” Indeed so, for when I am crestfallen because of the woes of daily life in this world, my cats come next to me and nestle their little furry body and soft head under my arms, purring, consoling, and allaying my fury and disappointment and sadness. Unlike my fellow human species, my cats know me well and accept me for who I am. They say animals can see the true colors of our characters. True, especially in the case of cats who can see spirits.

    I have noticed that people dislike cats with a sense of pride as if there were some peculiar virtue in expressing such shameless disapproval of cats. So be it because cat people are a particular tribe whose sensitive nature and delicate sensibility fit those of cats. Edgar Allen Poe and the Brontë Sisters would ditto in the constellation of literary stars excellently bright in heaven with their cats in their arms, purring and meowing. Therefore, in light of those mentioned above, why wouldn’t I willingly work tending cats free of charge?