Sharing

A little girl, an egg, and the sharing economy

I am six years old, a recent immigrant from Shanghai to Baton Rouge.

I will not understand the word immigrant for another five years. My parents are strangers who last saw their daughter before she could walk. Now, they peer at me with anxious eyes, pointing to this or that. “Chair,” they say in slow, deliberate English. “Toy—your toy.” The words taste strange, but I repeat them because it’s clear that’s what they want me to do.

It is a Wednesday night, a week or two after I first stepped foot on American soil. We are at the home of a friend of my parents. She has a son, a boy two years older than me. As we zip around the house in a game of tag, my eyes lock onto something on the refrigerator.

It is a magnet, such a simple little thing, in the shape of an egg. But something about it strikes me. Maybe it is the speckled yellow fabric shell. Maybe it is the horizontal crack through which a pink, smiling cartoon face peeks through at me.

I point to it. “My toy,” I say.

My mother is at my side in an instant. “Not yours,” she says, swatting my hand.

“No, my toy.”

My mother tries to hush me, but her friend overhears. “Oh, if Julie wants it, she can have it,” she says with a wink in my direction. “She’ll probably get more use out of it than Dennis, anyway.” She plucks the egg magnet off the fridge and places it into my delighted hands.

My mother is embarrassed but grateful. In that first year in Baton Rouge, few things were my toy. My parents were students, trading in borrowed money for a chance at a better life in the Land of Opportunity. And everything I played with that first year—stuffed animals, roller skates, building blocks—was shared with me by our friends and community.

I didn’t realize it until I was much older, of course. Then again, that is the beauty of sharing—everyone feels as if they have enough.

Our first guest was Rolando from New York.

His inquiry came within a few days of listing our place on AirBnb. I was surprised by how quickly it happened. One minute, you’re wondering if the photos of your place look clean enough, inviting enough that somebody would actually choose it as their temporary home, and then, before you know it, a guest is at your door with bag in hand.

Then the concerns shift—now you wonder if your place lives up to how it was presented, without the wide angle lens and the good lighting and the tranquility of a space captured in a still frame.

Rolando is all warmth and manners. We meet and greet and exchange keys and stories, the little bits of interaction that aren’t so easy to describe or list on a website. It seems silly to admit, but at the time I was sorely afraid of disappointing him. Homes are such private things that inviting someone you don’t know to stay for a few nights is kind of like handing that person a map of your life. My mother always said you can best understand people by observing how they behave when 1) they go about their business in their own homes and 2) when they travel.

Which, if you believe that, means AirBnb is enabling some of the truest, most honest experiences out there.

Oh, there are plenty of reasons why the sharing economy is game-changing. We humans waste and waste. We are obsessed with convenience and option value. We buy tons of things we don’t need, or don’t need all the time, because we like the flexibility of having it just in case. But today, we don’t need to buy. We can access all these things with a few taps of the screen—mobility, shelter, tools, other people’s time and attention and skills. And if we have rooms or cars or tools or time to spare, we can offer those things to others.

Sharing is incredibly efficient. It saves global resources. It creates a livelihood for some people. It helps others be able to afford what was previously out of their reach.

But more than that, what makes the sharing economy so interesting to me are the human experiences underlying it. The conversations with Rolando about rapgenius. The glasses of Bulgarian wine with Vassil. How nice it is to hear the phrase see you next time I’m in town.

The specialization of professions can make the world feel enormous. But in borrowing from a neighbor, hitching a ride, or finding a place to crash, it’s nice to be reminded that a long time ago, we didn’t have hotels or transportation services or chain stores. We had people. Just people.

The yellow-speckled egg still graces the fridge of my childhood home, flashing its silly smile at me whenever I walk past. Reminding me of what it means to share. Reminding me of what I’ve gained.