I was thinking about that phrase: a gentle close to the week. What does it mean? A door being pulled shut, a latch clicking into place.
Or is a gentle close the act of leaving a door cracked, with breadcrumbs to follow on Monday? Maybe it's finishing your task list, or saying "whew I'm glad it's finally Friday" or unfurling a big net and capturing all the week's ambitious ideas and plans and forcing them into hibernation over the weekend.
Maybe a gentle close is the thrill of knowing the emails will slow or you can Right Click > Quit on Zoom. Maybe it's a deep exhale or a 4 p.m. cutoff or a celebration you have yet to choose.
Whatever your gentle close to the week, I hope you can take a second to reflect on everything – the highs, the lows, the undones, the dones, and be glad for the richness of your experience. A week can hold so much! An entire life. Even you.
“One day during the 1930s, Einstein invited Saint-John Perse to Princeton to find out how the poet worked. ‘How does the idea of a poem come?’ Einstein asked. The poet spoke of the role played by intuition and imagination. ‘It’s the same for a man of science,’ Einstein responded with delight. ‘It is a sudden illumination, almost a rapture. Later, to be sure, intelligence analyzes and experiments confirm or invalidate the intuition. But initially there is a great forward leap of the imagination.”
From Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
Love a great leap forward of the imagination.
(Thanks to Colin for reading the 700-page book and excerpting what he knew I would appreciate! What greater gift is there?)
Our Group Friday Deadline Is Here!
For all my friends who decided to join the wild-and-communal deadline of Friday, February 17, 2023 at 4 p.m. ET for whatever task is bugging you, the day is here!
You shared with me that you were going to work on personal websites, install the baby gate, edit videos, update LinkedIn profiles, among many other tasks.
Go for it — I’m cheering you on!!!