zoom out, zoom in

As many places and as many times as I’ve nomaded around, I can’t seem to shake the anxiety I get when figuring out the logistics of getting from point A to point B. Finding out I was arriving for a 10 day work trip with back to back meetups during the NYC marathon, again, had me already dreading trying to navigate the city. Almost exactly 10 years prior, I was in NYC and got stuck in a 2.5 hour long bus/subway/walking loop during the 2015 marathon. I imagined the same after a nearly 6 hour long flight and readied myself for mayhem only to find a much easier and more reliable system than I remembered complete with the ability to tap and go from my phone. I wondered if this is what my mom feels when we’ve traveled with phones that can look anything up and solve many problems compared to her phone-less travel days. Sometimes I think my rigidity around travel logistics is made worse by my phone and the exactness it claims to provide. Without a phone and the expectations that come with it, I wonder what would change. It reminds me of the first two weeks of my second sabbatical when I went phone and computer-less. I probably would have asked for help more, studied maps harder, learned the subway routes better, and have shown up later. I wonder though if I would have been calmer.

A few days later when meeting up with a best pal to walk around Central Park and snap some photos, I felt such an ease navigating where to go and smiled to myself thinking about how far I had come since trying to navigate during the 2015 NYC marathon. As one of my favorite quotes says, “We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love.”

All of this is to say, I don’t generally enjoy traveling to big cities but I found myself in the privileged position of both being just a short 15 minute walk from the Automattic office in NoHo and getting to spend many days basking in the carefully curated space that is the office. I was there for both our AI division meetup and our Architecture leadership meetup as part of my new job. I spent hours deep in conversation with others from around the world, collaboratively came up with solutions to various areas we want to do better in, learned from one of Gutenberg’s most prolific contributors (Riad!) how to properly use AI to contribute back to Gutenberg, went deep in various AI initiatives we have running at Automattic, shipped some PRs with help from others, and broke bread with many folks. During the first ever dev/ai/nyc event, I felt how much care went into bringing so many together and loved being able to talk to people I’ve known for years and brand new folks.

Throughout the ten days there, I kept thinking about this unique moment in time for the open web. What will come of this? What do I want to come of this? Some years feel like many years combined and this last year has been one of those. I feel the magic and momentum returning while also seeing ways we need to tend to our wear and tear (our cultural debt) of the last year. During this time in person, I got to talk to folks with many more years under their belt than me and peppered them with questions. I feel my perspective shifting the longer I’m engaged in this work. I feel the unique chance to continue working on big problems for so long. I hear the same debates play out in new places and new teams. I see old ideas become new and the appetite for them shift. Timing is everything sometimes. At the root, my mantra has become: What does this unique time allow for and, looking back five years from now, what will come of it? How can I be present and nurture what is happening today for a better tomorrow? I zoom out and feel the meaning of these days. I zoom in and act to make them meaningful.

In any case, this was meant to be a post about photos but clearly I’m marinating in more. Here are some of the more adventurous photos I tried snapping. I love a reflection and I love when there are layers of reflections. The hotel we stayed at proved to have some fun opportunities with their windows and mirrors as did the office:

Here’s a few folks snapped of me:

And here are some I took of the city that already has a million photos taken of it. Being in cities that are already so documented always makes me more careful about taking photos. I want a photo that feels more distinctly mine and doesn’t add to the noise but that offers something new. I don’t feel the urge to have a photo of some famous part of a city that everyone has. I don’t feel I accomplished that with these and I think that’s okay. What I like most about them is the placement of the people in motion rather than the views.

And finally, I snapped some of my team. There’s something amusing and fascinating about seeing people think in person. Who talks under their breath? Who pauses and looks away? Who scribbles down notes? Who jumps right in? It’s not something we get to see from afar and it’s part of what I enjoyed about these particular photos. They feel like thinking captured.