March 23, 2026

My story about bridges begins on a sidewalk. I was meandering about on east 74th street when I met a kind woman who was less in a hurry than anyone else appeared to be — still, she was headed somewhere and I was going nowhere, so given this wonderful happenstance, I spent the night as her +1 to an evening seminar on Japanese Gardens. In the basement of a museum I had never seen before, I wound up amongst a wonderfully niche group of American horticulturists and landscape architects— one of which was giving a presentation on his 8 week journey across Japan where he’d set out to explore the gardens. There were several fascinating takeaways from the event but one that has really stuck with me has been about bridges. The bridges that I know and love operate in a very straight forward manner. They take you from point A to point B. It is hardly ever about the bridge, more about getting to the other side. Transactional, if you will. The bridges I learned about that night were beyond my wildest bridge imagination. These bridges zigged, these bridges zagged. Crossing a swirly bridge can be treacherous. It requires attention. It calls for pauses. The bridge architecture invites contemplation, and allows for a change in perspective-- built not to bring you across a landscape, but to draw you in. These bridges evoke a presentness. A meaningful and deliberate commute, where you are not just crossing the bridge but participating in it. Conscious participation in our environments is important, and I've found that it takes way too much work in a place like New York. Here is what I've discovered: So much of what day-to-day environmental participation looks like in this city revolves around two things: Zoning out and zooming in. 1. Zoning out. -- the noise, the clutter, the speed, the hurry. The goal, a lot of the time in NY, is to make it from point A to B. To cross the bridge between locations without being involved in or overwhelmed by a fight, a blaring horn, a subway performance, an announcement, an advertisement - all happening at once. 2. Zooming in. -- often to our phones. Texting furiously, we might act distracted to avoid getting approached. Or maybe its coordination based-- using a maps app to navigate to anything and everything. Is it this stop or the next one? Which route is faster? What trains are delayed? Or maybe we are zooming in to our phones to simply avoid the discomfort we feel between places and hurries and responsibilities. Or maybe we just want to watch a mindless video because god forbid i getta littlebitta me time Zooming in to our commutes, whether we truly notice it or not, also includes a whole lot of precariousness due to sheer quantity of variables we encounter when just stepping outside. Example 1: Watching for dog poop, trash or glass on the sidewalk. Example 2, simultaneously to watching the ground: Giving enough attention to the street to see if a biker, a car, a person on their phone, is about to run into you. A culture of hyper-focusedness is the result. I lived in new york for four years and commuted across this very straight forward bridge every day without batting an eye or truly understanding why I felt the way I did. My change in perspective came after I zigged across the country to spend 6 months in Yellowstone National Park, where I worked as an Environmental Specialist. My job was hands on and dirty and my commutes across the mountainous geothermal landscape was full of zags. The bridge was different. Now that I’m back in New York, my awareness has shifted. I am less comfortable taking this bridge to work and oftentimes find myself reminiscing about those other commutes. Alls this to say, Our environments play a huge role in our happiness and our commutes across bridges matter. They dictate more than we think. So, next time you’re headed somewhere, meander about on your commute, solicit a zag. You might end up in a basement seminar.