This cross stitch, made by a close friend, holds a version of my house motto: My house is your house; I haven’t got a lot, but what I have is yours. 

It’s no secret that college students tend to live on a shoe-string budget, often subsisting on a diet of assorted pastas supplemented by cheap alcohol and a few Pop-Tarts. In my pre-college mind, I was terrified to move away to school and not be able to invite people over to share a meal that couldn’t be cooked in a microwave.

Perhaps these days especially, while I sit home sipping wine alone and experimenting with recipes I’ll have to enjoy by myself, I’ve been reflecting on the things I miss and the things I’ve learned about how to be together. 

In four short years, with the help of friends and mentors who were excited about inviting people in, I think I got the hang of hospitality. My good friend Emily wrote another essay called “Hoink!”: A Legacy about the Thursday Dinners I hosted over the years, probably one of the best things I ever did in college. 

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Lesson 1: Set boundaries

Okay. This one might seem counterintuitive. It’s a lesson I keep learning and relearning, and I put it as Lesson 1 for a reason. There’s no shame in knowing your limits and setting boundaries that keep you healthy, even as you embrace your community. For me, when ten o’clock would roll around, my friends knew that bedtime was coming and it was time to skedaddle. Like I promised my therapist, I’m practicing.

Lesson 2: Put away your devices

Seems like a no-brainer, right? But I cannot tell you how often, in a group of ten or fifteen people, one person will get on their phone and send a ripple to the rest of the room, where people are browsing social media and unsure of how to interrupt each other’s scrolling for more conversation. I learned this one from my friend Ryan, who gave a striking description of someone as “the kind of person who closes his laptop to talk to you.” 

Lesson 3: Have an empty dishwasher

This tidbit of practical wisdom comes directly from a couple at my church, Marny and Tracy. They take my friends and I out to lunch, invite me over for holidays, and are truly some of the most generous and hospitable people I’ve ever met. My first Easter in Michigan, I shared lunch with them. As we moved to clean up, we loaded things directly into the dishwasher. Tracy smiled conspiratorially and said, “Marny figured out years ago that having an empty dishwasher makes everything easier. It’s one of the main reasons I married her.”

Lesson 4: Food

Life hack: it’s usually much cheaper to make your own food than it is to order in or go out. And on a college-student budget, with a few spices and some daring, you can make some darned good food to feed a crowd. This lesson comes from my friend and housemate Bethany, who could whip up a roux in minutes and knew how to stretch a dollar to feed fifteen people. She tried new recipes, substituted ingredients with reckless abandon, and always came up with something unique and delicious. I’m a much better cook (and person) for knowing her. 

Lesson 5: Don’t check your watch

One of my mentors, a professor who I can call “Matt” now that I’m not a student anymore, used to always keep his office door closed. He still does, I’m sure, since he’s the sort of person who always has at least thirteen things to do at any given time. So if you want to talk to him, you have to brave the terror of knocking. From time to time, I would work up the courage to get his attention, but once I sat down his whole focus was on me. I knew he was busy, but it felt like he had time for me, never glancing nervously at the clock. Only once did I ever see him check the time, and then he said, “Please excuse me, I need to check my watch: I have to pick up my daughter from soccer practice this afternoon.” 

Lesson 6: Do something others can help with

I’ll credit this to my friend and mentor Matt (a different Matt than in Lesson 5). He loves to have people over to his home for meals, or just to welcome them into his office with a warm cup of coffee. He, like me, is an Enneagram 2, and so an obsessive helper. When my coworkers and I cooked with him, or even just spent time with him, he always seemed to have some little thing or another we could do to keep our hands busy and feel helpful, even though he could have done it all himself. Certainly, some were content to sit and chat and (wisely) avoid a “too many cooks” scenario. But for people like me, who love to be helpful and hospitable in our own right, it was a relief to cut veggies or set the table and feel part of the space-making. 

Lesson 7: Leave a key under the mat

Another lesson from the inimitable Marny and Tracy, this one may seem a little extreme. But as someone who really does mean my house is your house, and also happened to be scheduled up to my eyeballs every day of the week, it was an exciting prospect to have other people let themselves in. Another layer of welcome that says “help yourself to a glass of water” and “you know where the spoons are.”

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I’m learning new lessons in hospitality all the time, and hope you are too. Some days it feels like I’ve got nothing left to give, and it’s in those times that I look at the cross-stitch on my wall and remind myself of what I aspire to: my house is your house; I haven’t got a lot, but what I have is yours.

Lillie Spackman

Lillie grew up on a forty-acre hay farm in Central Oregon, making the trek to Michigan to study mechanical engineering and sustainability. After graduating in 2020, she moved to Rochester, NY, where her day job as an engineer for the local gas utility funds her outdoor adventures, love of books, various craft projects, and investment in her new community.