25-09-14-S | 12:52 PST | 🌥️ ☀️ | 🌡️90° – 63° | Northridge, CA
🌗 Last quarter moon is in ♊➝♋
🌿 Season (Late Summer)
📍 Week 38 | Day 257/365 | 108 Days Remaining
🌇 Sunset: 19:01
National Day 🙅🏽♀️ Parents Day Off!
Today unfolded less in motion and more in quiet reckoning. After submitting to the flu shot and yesterday’s blood draw at Kaiser, I felt unmistakably enervated—not shattered, but subtly drained, as if the body had paid its dues to medicine and now demanded a day of recompense. A caffeine pill at 10:35 lifted the curtain briefly, enough to power through my abdominal routine with the ab-carver, but the energy never settled into permanence. My left knee, healing but not yet trustworthy, urged me to listen. Rest was no indulgence; it was instruction.
The morning found me in conversation. A call to Bank of America became a conversation of depth when DeMarcus, a young man on the other end, turned a routine transaction into a forty-two–minute exploration of The Fasting Life. He pulled up my web pages, lingered on the vision behind the book, and pledged to buy it. I felt the familiar satisfaction of seeing words take root in unexpected soil.
Later came my exchange with Mark, which stretched to two hours and thirty-eight minutes, a length that revealed both kinship and concern. We spoke of many things, but his Subaru became the central emblem of the dialogue. He had finally let go of his father’s Lincoln Continental, unwilling to risk questionable smog tests, and traded it for a Subaru Outback Touring XT—an investment of $42,000 that he now calls one of his wisest decisions. For his niece Azra, preparing for the California Bar in November, he purchased a separate Subaru, a new model valued at $32,000. To him, Subaru represents not only reliability but loyalty: a company that stands by its product with a generous five-year warranty, covering service and mileage with assurance he finds rare.
Mark now uses his own Subaru as a work vehicle, fitting for the new chapter he is entering. Together with his siblings Marsha and Mike, he manages the Henry properties, and the car has become his companion for electrical jobs and maintenance tasks. He praises its power, its comfort, and the sense that it will serve him faithfully for years. In a way, the Subaru is both a workhorse and a symbol: a bridge from the relics of his father’s past to the practical needs of his present.
Our conversation, of course, roamed wider. ScreenPappy, the service I helped name, continues to demand his energy. He spoke of a Filipino woman whose intended marriage has unraveled, of clients unsure whether to return devices, of the daily uncertainty in work and human dealings. I, in turn, spoke of my own purchase: a Seagate four-terabyte hard drive for $130 with tax. Mark steered me away from the glamour of SSDs, better left to gamers, toward the practical solidity of HDDs—more space for less cost, a machine made for capacity rather than speed. Memory, whether human or mechanical, benefits from breadth as much as brilliance.
By evening, I was aware that the flu shot had left its subtle but undeniable mark. Though caffeine masked the weakness for a time, the truth was inescapable: energy had ebbed, and the only wisdom was stillness. Fasting, too, had carried me far: 24 hours, then 25, then 19 today, before breaking the fast with pasta and meatballs, corn, cake, cookie, pie. Not indulgence, but balance. Not waste, but reward.
The day closed as it began—with a quiet reminder that life’s machinery must be serviced, its strength rebuilt. Energy wanes, but it is in the ebb that renewal begins.
🏛️ Wisdom’s Lens
Hippocrates: “If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.”
🔎 Hippocrates reminds us that wisdom lies in heeding the body’s counsel before illness forces its command.
🏛️ Wisdom’s Lens
Heraclitus: “Even sleepers are workers and collaborators in what goes on in the universe.”
🔎 Heraclitus shows us that rest is not idleness; even in stillness, we remain part of the world’s unfolding.
🌅 Closing Meditation
Rest is not retreat; it is the art of replenishment, the pause between notes that makes the music whole.
🔎 By giving the body its interval of quiet, strength is tuned again to harmony.
🎨 Painterly Caption
In late sunlight: a Subaru gleams at the curb, its hood lifted like a beast ready for labor. Beside it, a hard drive hums on a desk, while a half-finished plate of food hints at the discipline of fasting interrupted by necessary reward.
Reflections of Gratitude
I am grateful for DeMarcus, whose curiosity affirmed the power of words to spark connection. For Mark, whose loyalty to Subaru mirrors his own sense of duty. For Azra, whose preparation for the Bar reminds me that every generation must prove itself. For the flu shot, subtle though its toll, that nudged me toward rest. For fasting, which continues to refine both discipline and body. These, woven together, remind me that life is not simply endured but cultivated—one day, one decision, one conversation at a time.
Poem
🪶 The Machinery of Renewal
Needles draw, yet wisdom stays,
Energy thins in fleeting rays.
Engines hum, and lives renew,
Subaru strength for tasks to do.
Memory stored in drives that spin,
Fasting steadies the flame within.
Rest reclaims what toil has sown,
In silence, the soul becomes its own.
— R.M. Sydnor
RMS INSIGHTS ✍🏾 