My life these days feels like an unfinished quilt, stacks of samplers and swatches set aside by its maker without ever being picked up again, probably accidentally but perhaps as a conscious abandonment, a hopeless decision to move on to a more organized, more approachable, more promising project. Each half-sewn square is for someone who has somehow touched my life, and together they make up the vast yet microscopic world of my quilt.

Every year of my life, there has been a teacher whom I loved.

In kindergarten, there was Ms. Czitrom, who taught me how to recognize Clever Cat and Quarrelsome Queen and also that a mother’s smile can be roughly approximated (although not exactly equaled) by other women with kind eyes and brown hair.

In first grade, there was Ms. Anglund, who taught me how to read Wemberly Worried after I missed the first day of school with an anxious tummy ache and also how to find my own blossoming little voice under all the worries.

In second grade, there was Ms. Leachman, who taught me how to organize place values and how to write and think and feel beyond the page limit of the ELA assignment.

In third grade, there was Ms. Anton, who taught me how to copy my name in cursive (a practice which I soon adopted for every written assignment), who led me to aspire to read the entire World Book Encyclopedia, Volumes A-Z, and who showed me how to begin to love my own little self as much as I loved her.

In fourth grade, there was Ms. Crossman, who taught me how to put on paper all the stories that were stuck in my head, who announced about me to the school at the moving up assembly that “she writes like she breathes,” and who really, truly believed that I would one day play shortstop for the New York Yankees.

In fifth grade, there was Ms. Moorman, who taught me how to write an essay—a real one, one worthy of a brand new Upper Schooler—about Island of the Blue Dolphins and who taught me to recite those dozens of memorized lines of early Keats whenever I felt the old anxiety rise again.

In sixth grade, there was Ms. Thurber, who taught me how to say “Ajax” the proper way, the real ancient Greek way (it’s pronounced “Eye-oss”), who taught me to closely read the long scholarly introduction to Robert Fagles’s The Iliad, and who taught me, when I came to her crying about how Isabel Anderson had told me I was weird, that “you are weird, dear, but in the most wonderful way, don’t you think?”.

In seventh grade, there was Dr. Anagnostopoulou, who taught me the ecstatic, spiraling difference between le passé composé and l’imparfait and who taught me the wisdom of sometimes being half as hard on others as I always was on myself.

In eighth grade, there was Mr. Saldana, who taught me the importance of the semi-colon, the intricate language of the U.S. Constitution, and the need to seek redemption from myself, not just for myself.

In ninth grade, there was Ms. Muñiz, who taught me the detail of every single literary allusion in Tobias Wolff’s Old School and who taught me to hold myself together when someone I love dies.

In tenth grade, there was Dr. Lawrence, who taught me to read War and Peace in a single semester, who taught me that my love of words could take me anywhere, and who taught me how to save my own precious life.

In eleventh grade, there was Ms. Miller, who taught me how to learn Ancient Greek accents during her own lunch periods and who taught me how to laugh at myself.

In twelfth grade, there was Dr. Halper, who taught me to approach texts of all kinds with the full force of complex queer and gender theory and who taught me, no matter how ardently I cared for someone else, to keep something of me for myself.

Last year, there was Professor Zimmerman, who taught me to analyze Grimms’ Fairy Tales from a Freudian perspective (during the winter session, no less!) and who taught me to trust my dear mother again with my secrets.

I do not know who there will be this year, if anyone. But maybe, just maybe, that is the enormous impression my teachers have tried to impart to me, the border of the quilt they’ve tried to sew together, on every Monday morning and every Friday afternoon, through English and social studies and French, with their words and with their deeds. Perhaps the real lesson has been developing since Ms. Czitrom’s smile all the way until Professor Zimmerman’s hugs. I am not my teachers, but I have never been more honored to be taken under anyone else’s wing, and if I can emulate even a fraction of their grace this year and beyond, I will consider myself blessed.

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