I didn’t know you could build a home. I thought it had to be luck, stars aligning, or something unobtainable. From 30 days in Spain, I learned all it took was lingering after a meal, and a tomato. 

The program lasted only a month. When I met my host mom, Carmen, I stumbled over an introduction in broken Spanish, body trembling and sticky in the humidity. Back then, I was glad it would be short. I’d be “home” in a month, back to what I knew. Brows knit together as I failed to understand, knowing they were speaking slower for me, knowing it wasn't enough. I started keeping a tally of my mistakes, because if it wasn't the heat keeping me up it was the faults and failures weighing down in much the same way.

I was nervous, and so ashamed of myself. “Belonging” was an unattainable concept. It felt like the world had blurred and twisted beneath my feet. I didn’t deserve a place at the table — but every night, Carmen set it out for me. She always filled my cup first. The largest piece of fruit was always balanced on my plate. 

In my slow, mispronounced words, we started to talk. I told her that I used to have a garden with tomatoes, that they smelled like home. In the meals after that, in a hushed ritual, her hands worked steadily to avoid every tomato in the salad bowl, leaving them for me. 

It was things like that, so small that to any outsider they are nearly invisible. Yet, it’s the invisible things that change us, because for a moment I felt known; I felt home. Over the weeks, I learned to notice the small things, to let them happen, and to reciprocate. 

The smallest things have taught me hope, something I think all college students desperately need. 

On one of the worst nights of my life, I came home a wreck. She continued to do what she had always done. When I distractedly misplaced my house key, she returned it to where it always sat in my room, straightening my stuffed animal on the way out — no scolding, just silent care. Later, she set down two salads, one with tomatoes. I turned my head as I tried not to cry, and we both lingered when the meal was done. When I put the water pitcher away, she folded the tablecloth. She asked about things I didn’t remember telling her and brewed my coffee for the morning just the way I like it. 

In all honesty, I sobbed on the plane home, worried I wouldn’t find that kind of loving attention here. But, I learned, I just didn’t know how to look. It’s in how the bus driver waits for that one extra person, in a compliment given about vibrant hair, an extra chocolate passed to your brother, ducking under a stranger's umbrella. The smallest things have taught me hope, something I think all college students desperately need. 

College sparks the troubled realization that home isn’t a constant. It can be left, disrupted in a single night by tens or thousands of miles. But it also opens the doorway to a whole world of people to love. 

I was acting blindly before, but now, after all of this, I know how to build a home. I have found people who I would avoid tomatoes for, that I’d do anything for. My best friend doesn’t like working outside, so we study in. Another prefers the right side of the cafeteria, so I set the table there. I know their food orders. I buy extra laundry detergent just for them. 

Because in these moments, when I walk them home, when I linger with a hug, when I help them move out, or order for him, and put on a song she likes, I see the heaviness lift from their shoulders. We’re dying for these things. There’s so much love in me, in us. This species is starving for that ounce of being known. 

I can’t help but be like Carmen. 

So, yes, I’ll take you on a drive. No, you don’t have to pay me back for the food. Yes, I bought you that snack you like. No, you’re not a burden. Yes, I love you. Yes, you can have my tomatoes. 

Some things that take nothing mean everything. This is what college is meant to be, tearing down the walls of anxiety and shame and rejection. It’s in these selfless acts that we build a home, for others, and for ourselves. 

I find that college students, like anyone in a new, stressful environment, isolate themselves. But I worry that in our dark, albeit comfortable, corners, we miss out on the chance to belong, to be known. Because that’s what it is — that’s what the small acts of kindness do. It’s a way of saying, “I’m here with you,” "I see you,” “We’re an us.”

Paying attention, taking the time to check in with someone, remembering birthdays, lingering in a doorway, giving a hug on the way out — this is how you build a home. It doesn't matter what country, what language. You don’t need rising cathedrals or the late Spanish sun. You don’t need an extraordinary act to save someone; you only need to listen. You only need to be there. 

The life changing lesson I’ll forever hold from those days in Spain is the ease of belonging, how natural it can be. It isn’t dependent on the good or the bad. I learned to let someone take my tomatoes, to confess about the hard days, to stay. I’ll allow the home to be built, allow the small things to matter and take root. 

So, let someone take your tomatoes or refill the pitcher after dinner — just stay. Stay, and take the time and effort. Some people have never had a home built around them; some need it more than anything, and maybe you do, too. It doesn’t take an army, just a tomato. 

Chloe McCaskill is a rising sophomore at Wake Forest University from New York, New York.