I’ve found that iden­ti­fy­ing ways to be a part of shared col­lab­o­ra­tive and com­mu­ni­ty projects that pro­duce knowl­edge or build infra­struc­ture that has been influ­en­tial and instruc­tive for me has con­nect­ed me to a lot of real­ly amaz­ing peo­ple and ideas. And so, most rel­e­vant to this pre­sen­ta­tion I want to talk about how my more recent work as an open source main­tain­er has actu­al­ly helped me learn more about how to be present in com­mu­ni­ties that are impor­tant to me.