My Hands

My hand gravitates towards yours

As though you were a furnace

On the coldest day of the year

I keep my hands to myself

My body remembers you

Every cell wants to joyfully leap outside of me

My olfactory senses indulge in a familiarity

Rarely ever felt to me

I keep my body to myself

I am an energetic ball of restraint

For fear of rushing in full force

And never bouncing back

And I am terrified

I keep my energy to myself

  

A natural inclination to lay my head on your chest

Fall into an embrace like a child to a mother’s breast

Like your strong arms can hold me

I keep my head to myself

My stomach has collected more butterflies today

Than it has all year

And I like the way you look at me

I keep my heart to myself

I am laughing it off when you discuss other women

And everything in your life that doesn't include me

Using all of my will just to brush it off casually

When really I just want you to

Remember all those little things

That make up me

Like the fact that I’ll never really give up coffee

But I’ll keep trying

And my brow’s arch so slightly when I’m focusing

How I always say obscenities in Spanish

But only when I’m angry

I always laugh at my own jokes

When no one else thinks it’s funny

The way my tongue presses against my front teeth

When I’m smiling

And all I really want to do

Is lie down here with you

With my fingers caressing your face

But I keep my hands to myself

Sharing is Caring and Other Truths of a Share-able Economy

The most meaningful moments in my life spent with other people have one common thread: sharing.

I’ve been a member of the CouchSurfing community since 2007 when I started hosting strangers at my 3 bedroom apartment in Logan Square.  I opened the couch and home I shared with three roommates to these strangers and we shared moments, parties and experiences together.  I connected with people from all over the world through CouchSurfing.  We overcame language barriers together.  We shared food together, talked politics and social norms.  We cut the bullshit of every day conversation and just got to the good stuff.  We learned from each other and ultimately we changed each other slowly – each experience undid all my false perceptions of different cultures, countries or people with truth; with the expansiveness only experience can provide. 

I found out about the film: One Couch at a Time, through someone that I had the pleasure of hosting myself who is featured at some point in the film.  In the documentary, the brave Couchsurfer Extraordinaire, Alexandra, hits up 6 different continents and couchsurfs through her way through all of it.

This film was inspiring – not just to the wanderlust escape artist inside of me but also to the wide-eyed young woman full of hope in the midst of all the global and economic crises surrounding young people today. 

I remember my first job armed with so much idealism and thinking: Why are we still working this way?  Why can’t we change things?  We don’t have to do things the same way our fathers or mothers did.  We are the leaders we've been waiting for!

Then the reality of student loans and bills hits you hard – harder than it ever did for past generations and you lose hope in being able to change the status quo, but this film made me believe in possibilities again.  I don’t have to live this super sequential story board life to have everything I want.  I can have it through community, through sharing, through human connection with others.

The people are demanding transparency, environmentally friendly resources, and innovation with technology as modern-day sharing’s vehicle of choice.  Those who cannot understand this will fail.  A new age is dawning – one that will demand more from all of us.  It will demand better businesses, better neighbors, better communities, better leadership and it is now. 

“Opportunities thought impractical because of perceived trust barriers are now fair game.  The examples of Lending Club, Couchsurfing and Thredup show that people are engaging in intimate transactions with strangers driven by technology, new norms and need.  This is the trust frontier.  We have yet to discover how far we can push this frontier.  This is the decade when we answer the question: ‘How much can we share?’”

-Neal Gorenflo, Publisher, Shareable Magazine

I am hosting a screening of One Couch at a Time and discussion on the share-able economy on Thursday, May 16^th at 6 p.m. in the South Loop.  Please email me directly if you’re interested in attending.  The screening will be free so long as you bring something to share.  Seats are limited – first come first serve.  See you on the other side of this exciting frontier!