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

Tag: thoughts

  • prompt 89

    What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

    When I feel like having a perfect leisure time, wallowing in the luxury of permitted laziness from duties at work and home, I am a willing couch potato with my cats on each side of me, perching luxuriously just like ancient Roman patricians, watching movies I like.

    My choice of movies is preferential to supernatural scares. I will not use the term “Horror Movies” because most are not supernatural but gory and macabre with too much blood. When stressed or annoyed, I watch supernatural movies, preferably based on actual events – or so they say – and willingly lose myself in them. Maybe it’s this temporary forgetfulness of the present worries that act like analgesics to numb my tired nerves. Or perhaps I am just drawn to the netherworld. Who knows, I am a closet sybyil or oracle yet to be awakened? But, no psychic or panaronamal investigator, please.

    My cats seem to have no problems with my predilection for the supernatural because they are not afraid of ghosts, as cats are supernatural by themselves. They protect me from nightmares, goblins, vampires, and all the scary regulars from the dungeons and dunes.

    we ain’t afraid of ghosts.

  • prompt 88

    Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.

    It takes about an hour and 30 minutes from Los Angeles to San Diego by drive, so it’s not precisely near one another. Still, I love to visit the San Diego Zoo and Sea World on vacation.

    Disneyland and Universal Studios are the closest attractions, but I want to meet the animals, including Red Pandas, Tigers, Cheetahs, and Orcas, in person! I contemplated bringing my cats to introduce them to one another, but the Zoo and Sea World policies don’t allow it, so that they will stay home. But I turn on the Wildlife videos on YouTube before going to work, so I hope it will be a vicarious encounter. Of all the animal residents at the zoo, my special interests are Cheetahs and Orcas because they are exquisitely beautiful. I heard there is a unique safari program about Cheetahs, so I look forward to it.

    Wild at home: Toro and Camille from L to R

    Since my life with Toro and Camille, animals – Wild or Domestic – have become friends to me, or so I feel. I think animals know and like me better.

  • prompt 83

    What makes a good leader?

    A good leader is not only knowledgeable but also patient and understanding. The Homerian virtue of Arete was a combination of military finesse with personal integrity, which applies to today’s prompt topic.

    But in reality, there are a few good men and women in leadership. Many women on the leadership level are afraid of showing traits of feminity and behave overtly professionally, berating other women whom they regard as too gentle or quiet. It is not an overtly manipulated air of aggressiveness that commands respect or attention, which the pretenders mistake.

    It reminds me of Queen Elizabeth I’s Tilbury Address: “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.” You can be both gentle and firm, and that’s called wisdom. It makes a good leader.

  • Prompt 81

    Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

    I love you Toro ❤️🥰

    I feel love with Toro, the Tabby General, the only one I can say, ‘ I love you.’ It’s emotionally taxing to work human’s love to be loved as if it were a quid pro quo deal or a meritocratic reward. But with Toro, it is anything but.

    Of course, I also love Camille, the Puss in Black Socks, but Toro is the center of my existence. He is all love and life. Toro is the only one who sees me gladly and greets me with his little head, bunting my leg and hand forcibly, even when I am sulky and miserable. He also sleeps at my feet or sometimes next to me when I sleep as though to dispel nightmares. He knows what I am feeling inside and who I am. Looking at his eyes is seeing my soul reflected in the emerald sea sparkling with curiosity and soothing with lullaby.

    I confide in Toro the maladies of my heart and secrets. Shakespeare said, “Love All, Do Wrong to None, and Trust a Few.” Toro is one of those a few I trust. I read a letter written by Elizabeth Taylor to her beloved cat who went missing after they moved to a house in California from England. I could feel her love toward her missing cat so much that it almost felt physically hurtful for the sorrow she expressed.

    Toro will turn four years old this August and is in good health now, but I am also worried that he will leave me someday. I can’t imagine a world without him and life without his love. So I always ask him to live with me as long as possible and to leave this world together when our times on earth are due. There’s no one like Toro who is as kind and affectionate as he is. He is my friend and my brother. I love him so much in every universe.

  • prompt 73

    What is your mission?

    Image from Google

    Sometimes, I just want to call it a day in my life. Blue or Black, Low or Dark. You call it depression, but I call it existential despair, which is not clinical but – well – existential that empirical situations shape the way I look at the world, not knowing what the purposes of my life are.

    I’ve read Dr. Viktor E. Frankl’s books about logotherapy, including his memoir because he is someone I could associate with in terms of his remarkable resilience and mind power to overcome his horrific experiences at the death camps during WWII. He said three values help us to find the purposes of life, which are Creative Value, Experiential Value, and Attitudinal Value. Of these values, I am practicing the Creative and Experiential Values by reading and writing because these are something I have been doing well since my childhood. Or I should think so.

    That said, my immediate mission is to finish the books I have downloaded on my Kindle, such as Think Again by Adam Grant and The Greeks by Philip Matyszak, to write book reviews on them. Writing book reviews is another habit I have been doing since the beginning of my nine-year-old blog. But these days, under the pretext of exhaustion from the job, I haven’t done it, so this will be my immediate mission.

    Another mission is to keep living a life, even if I don’t know what it leads me to. These days, I frequently contemplate why I should continue to live. But those who come back from near-death experiences or death said living is much better than death. Since I have not been dead yet, I can only believe them. After all, you must believe someone who has gone through such an ordeal, right? Like Dr. Frankl, who survived the Auschwitz.

    I think of the motto I created, which will be my credo for missions in life: “There’s Hope, There’s Light. Clear Mind, Open Heart. Keep Calm, Always Write.”

    Peace. 🌼💫🧚‍♀️🌍

    My motto created by me⭐️

  • Prompt 69

    Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

    When I was young, I used to think about my future, jotting down the years ahead and thinking about what I would be.

    Now that I have reached the time from the wonder years, I look forward to futures, while setting my foot on present. Although I am not as faithful as I used to be, I still regard the Bible as the source of practical wisdom that has survived for thousand years:

    Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

    Waking up every morning is like every birthday to us, and we can live these moments to the best we can, doing our daily tasks. I know I am also afraid of what tomorrow will bring, but it never knows, and honestly, I don’t want to know. Saint Teresa of Avila knew it hundreds of years ago:

    Let nothing disturb you,
    Let nothing frighten you,
    All things are passing away.
    God never changes.
    Patience obtains all things.
    Whoever has God lacks nothing;
    God alone suffice    s.

    God bless you all. ⭐️✨🍀🧚‍♀️