In November 2016, Abby brought a giant beanbag chair to school.
I had purchased a cheaper one a year or so before for the classroom. Adam had recommended it; it would be a nice place to nap or study, he said. Amazon had one coming my way within hours of his suggestion.
That one cost $32, and it aged like the bargain it was. The perfect school-purple exterior hid weak guts: its beans flattened out within a few weeks of regular use. Students still napped on it—the powerful magnetism of teenage sleep knows few bounds—but it looked flat and awkward far too soon.
Abby’s was much better. She doesn’t remember exactly why she brought it, although her hypothesis matches what I remember:
I think it was a combo of [things]. I wasn’t using it at home anymore, and we were always sitting on the floor of your room like during your other classes and [at] lunch…I thought it would make [that] more comfy? And side note: it definitely did—I took so many naps there and remember them fondly!
Indeed: Abby’s chair elevated the environment immediately. Although the limp purple smudge I’d bought remained, there was no contest for coziness. Her beanbag, bloated, round, and wide, became a mainstay in the front corner by my desk. Maia would do homework on it during her TA period, Marielle would browse Instagram there before first period, and Khaya would nap on it after school. Rebekah once fell so soundly asleep on it that she missed two minis. I couldn’t wake her; I stopped trying.
I’ve never been a beanbag chair person, bad back and whatnot, but damned if people didn’t make that thing look inviting. That was my favorite part about it: it provided incontrovertible evidence that people felt comfortable around me. I spent more hours at school during those years than I did at my house, and I loved that the massive beanbag chair facilitated a cozy atmosphere like one’s residence should. When people said they felt like the classroom was home, I believed them. That’s what I wanted them to feel. Abby’s gift made that real.
Still, beyond all its good, there was a weird quirk to the piece Abby brought in: its design. The beanbag chair was not some shoeless Goomba like mine but a monkey. From many angles, you’d never see it, but the thing had a smiling face on an oval head and limp noodle arms with light paws that evoked Curious George even though it looked like it had swallowed a beach ball.
Greater lore remained: Abby claimed there was a frog inside. That first day she brought it, she unzipped a section hidden below a flap and flashed an oval of green at me. I had assumed it was some sort of reversible design, but she admitted to attempting a bean transfusion from her oldest sister’s unused amphibian. When she grew frustrated, she shoved the entire frog inside her own and called it a day.
Abby graduated in 2017, but her beanbag chair stuck around. And it continued to be used in precisely the same way it had among her peers. Colleagues’ kids played on it; college students visited and curled up on it. I had many heartfelt conversations while uncertain-eyed students sat on it, clinging to this massive monkey like it was the raft in Castaway. It shows up in the corner of countless photos. It wasn’t a landmark or anything, but it was a fundamental part of the classroom that every visitor saw. It sat there when the Teacher of the Year committee visited. The Superintendent had to step forward to avoid bumping it when he presented the award to me.
The last day it sat out was March 6, 2020. Wyman rested briefly on it while I graded tests, chatting with Viên and me for a few hours after school. When I next returned to host students there, health protocols discouraged such items, so I stuffed the thing under my desk. At first, the monkey’s face grinned out at my feet during instruction, but that unnerved me, so I twisted its head to face the drawer. It became a lumpy shelf for supplies. No one but me even knew it was there.
Nobody fell asleep in that front corner of the classroom either.
*****
Nostalgia is an odd thing.
Although I do my share of gazing backward, examining the past strikes me as fundamentally distinct from nostalgia. When I write these pieces, I rarely long for the past. The past is a diving board for thoughtful reflection. It’s how I land in the water that matters, not the jumping-off point.
There’s a destructive core to nostalgia. When one pines for what’s gone, the present catches strays: one doesn’t yearn for yesterday during tantalizing todays. It’s when things are down that we wish for a time machine. Instead of looking forward, we take a hit on reminiscence. We know full well that we aren’t returning to those earlier times—the future cannibalizes the present as soon as the latter arrives—but we indulge that desire to escape the uncertain and frustrating now for the cost-controlled security of what already transpired.
While Taylor Swift’s albums define her eras, mine are even simple: everything follows the beat of specific graduating classes. Seven distinct cohorts touch every four-year epoch, but there’s almost always one that owns my memory for extended stretches. I can name those special classes easily: 2014 and 2017. While others are close, those two groups owned my life during the time they were on campus.
The why is pretty simple: I did everything with them. 2014 was my AVID class and, as a young teacher trying to carve out a niche, I followed their lead on everything. During their on-campus run, I transformed from a young math teacher into a guy who went to every event and had his fingers in every pie.
2017 didn’t have the same catalyst, but they had the original heyday of Mathletes. Those students spread into the other organizations I ran, rather than vice versa. By the time they were seniors, I knew this sprawling web of wonderful people, each of whom, on a whim, I could whip up a genuine compliment for.
What really set these two classes apart from all the others was time. During those eras, I gave nearly all my waking hours to school. When I wasn’t teaching, I was in conversation or consulting; when I wasn’t grading, I was revising or comforting. I was all in on everything that involved these wonderful young people. School ended around 3:00, but the day just kept going. Some years, they would drive their cars around to park in the staff lot so we all could exit safely through the dark. Some years, I would get messages late into the night.
If this sounds like some ordeal, I’m definitely not saying that. I loved it. The best way to convince a person they matter is people who want them around. Not even the orneriest brain can wave off dozens who never get enough of you. When they invite you into their lives, when they feed you and listen to you, and especially when they just plain believe in you, you can’t help but join them.
But that kind of closeness comes from time, and in those years, I dispersed it with reckless abandon. Honestly, I never noticed time passing; that was almost irrelevant. Get to school at 6:00 AM; shuffle out around 7:00 PM. I went dark to dark almost every day. It was like the classroom was this magical bubble blocking out the markers of minutes melting away. It’s no surprise that most of those closest to me now spent time in that bubble: we were together for so many hours that deeper connections were bound to form.
Here’s the strange thing about that glowing period, though: I don’t miss it. The bubble felt special, but it wasn’t the era that meant the most: it was the friendships founded during it. I don’t long to return to those times when the world felt one classroom wide. I like the baseball games, the dinners, the walks, and the concerts of the present.
What I do miss is the man who cluelessly navigated those times. I valued myself so little then that the only currency that meant a lick—time—I handed out like Halloween candy. I was desperate to off-load my hours to anyone but myself. I valued myself so little back then that I made my life outside of school disappear to spend more inside that classroom.
And I’m glad I did. I feel so, so lucky that it worked out the way it did, that I gave my full heart and every hour I could to those people across the years. The friendships I have now justify it.
But I can’t make that choice anymore. I feel a squeeze now. The finity of my life peeks through. There’s no losing myself in a moment; I can read the ledger and calculate the exchange. I deserve time to myself; hell, I need time to recharge. The door locks a little earlier; every extra hour grates on me.
Even when it’s for students I adore, I feel the squeeze. It’s like I can hear the clock’s hands tick-tick-ticking forward with every passing moment. I don’t feel at home there; I could be walking or writing or at the movies. I feel trapped by this place that used to inspire the opposite sensation.
I miss the person who didn’t notice the clock. If only I could lose myself in a conversation and discover the sky grown dark when I open the door. I used to hate to go; now, I can’t wait to leave. I miss the person who could get to know a massive chunk of a 650-student graduating class because he didn’t know better than devoting the time to do it.
The guy who felt that way was an idiot. But I liked him. A lot of people did. I miss him.
I wonder where he’s gone.
*****
On Thursday, November 2nd, the day has crept by. One day from Friday means Therapy Thursday, a positive even on the hardest days, but that accompanies an important BC lesson and two problems from Cuddles: Endgame in Calc Lab.
Busy days pass faster. That’s for sure. When I’m engaged in several tasks, the hours flutter by. These need not even be fun hours to evaporate—and newsflash, they’re usually not. This is one of those days.
So jam-packed is this Friday’s eve that I barely notice the bell. My final words on Integration by Parts have beaten the exit cue by a generous ten minutes, allowing me a head start on several grading tasks, a rehashed quiz, and all of the digital communication before the AMC.
None of the work on my plate is hard work. The components of my job are straightforward and familiar, but they become obstacles because they taste like bitter, spoiled chard. You eat those D-tier veggies to stay healthy, not to engage the senses.
While I grunt through wilted leaves of limp lettuce, three students sit absorbed in conversation. All of them are holdovers from sixth period: two of them, Theo* and Donny*, sit near the front and remain there, while the third, Gracie*, has moved over to join them.
I both am and am not aware of their discussion. Years of teaching and a lifetime of paranoid self-loathing have trained me to work productively without forfeiting my awareness, and those muscles are loosely engaged. My guardedness gear sits one shift from neutral—these are three of the most endearing people I interact with each day. As much as is possible for me, I’m not waiting for them to attack me. I am actually, authentically, half-listening. They’re looking up words in French and Spanish. I don’t remember why.
As I reach an inflection point in my work, Donny senses my re-entrance into the world and catches my attention. He asks a question about previous years’ students and classes.
We’ve talked about this before, so I answer honestly: I admit I feel differently about school these days.
“When did it change?” he asks.
I stumble through an answer.
“It just doesn’t feel the same in here,” I say.
“It looks so different in old pictures,” says Donny of the room. I expect him to talk about the same absent warmth that I sense, but he zags. “The walls looked so bare then. This is more alive now.”
“I like it here,” says Gracie. “There’s so many things from the past. You can tell people made a mark and haven’t been forgotten.”
I chew on this via my lip. “That’s what I want,” I reply. It’s like Gracie has written my thesis statement. “That’s the entire goal: for people to return and know they haven’t been lost to time.”
Gracie looks around, her gaze tracing jerseys and photos, t-shirts and the Hall of Fame.
“I can see that,” she says. “I can feel it.”
Her optimism derails whatever I was doing on the computer. I lose track of the changes I had been in the midst of.
“Yeah, but it still doesn’t feel the same.” I am adamant.
“How?” asks Donny.
I don’t hesitate.
“People used to just sit here. They’d stay for hours. They’d lay on this big frog-monkey beanbag—“
“What?” they all ask in incredulous unison.
“It’s this massive beanbag chair in the shape of a monkey. But there’s also a frog in it. Abby brought it.”
They laugh.
“What happened to it?” Theo asks.
I reach under the desk and grab for the massive felt ball stuffed against a drawer. It’s wedged in deep, and several documents slide off it as I withdraw the thing. It’s larger than I remember.
Dust and grime swirling around me, I raise it in the air like a dead pigeon.
“There’s no room for it anymore,” I say, gesturing at the wagon still stuffed with Diamond Day supplies and Mathletes folders.
Donny pops up and runs over to grab the thing from me.
“There’s a frog in there?” he asks. “A whole frog?”
I panic. It’s been almost seven years since Abby told me that story. There’s a memory of her verifying it for me, of her showing me the green fabric from that zippered seam, but suddenly I’m doubting that happened. The monkey remains bloated, but it looks so natural in that form that I wonder if I’m not misremembering her story. Maybe it was that the frog used to be inside but she took it out? Maybe I’m thinking of my own attempts at borrowing beans?
Donny clears a small square under the new whiteboard and crouches near the floor.
“Let’s see,” he says.
My emotion is so out of place that I can’t process it right away. I’m afraid—I’m terrified of what Donny might find inside. I haven’t been exaggerating, but I feel this doubt as his hands probe the monkey’s abdomen for an in. If the frog isn’t there, I will have misremembered something I’ve taken as fact for years. One element of those best times will have been a lie. I stop breathing as Donny seizes on a zipper.
“Aha!” he proclaims.
If I misremembered this
He reaches into the interior.
what else have I misremembered?
If there’s no frog inside, what else about those years is imagined? Which other details that I have clung to, that have been my evidence for years of meaning and love, that have pointed with buzzing neon letters the presence of good times, that I’ve looked back on as the moments when the best parts of my life were beginning, when the right people first appeared around me and I meant so much to so many people every day—which of those was also a false frog?
Donny’s hand tugs gently once, then a second time.
what else of the best of me was a lie?
He stands up.
what else have I misremembered?
The sewn skin of a giant frog rises from the husk of a bloated monkey.
“I can’t believe that was actually in there,” someone says. Maybe it’s me.
There’s further investigation of the monkey’s interior, but I’m just staring at the hollow fabric frog. How had I just convinced myself it was gone? When would it have been taken? Who would have stolen the skin of a beanbag chair? Hell: who would have even believed it was in there?
While I stare at the frog carcass, the three of them inspect the monkey. Someone says something.
“What?” I ask, only just returning to the world of their present.
“Can I lay on it?” Donny asks.
I must have nodded because soon he’s leaning back on the monkey. He crosses one leg over the other and clasps his hands behind his head. He closes his eyes. He looks so…so…
Comfortable.
Donny says nothing for a few moments, long enough that Theo jokes that he might have actually fallen asleep. But then a smile races across his face. His eyes pop open.
“Can we keep this here?” he asks. All three look up at me.
I nod while tears stream down my cheeks.
“Yes,” I say. “Sure.”
It’s almost 5:00.
I hadn’t noticed.
*****
It’s Thursday, November 9th. Donny lays on the frog-monkey, engrossed in conversation with Gracie and Theo. I’m leaning on my desk, on the edge of their conversation too, chiming in where I can.
I glance at the clock. It’s almost 4:30. I print the Mock Test for Tuesday and even run copies, buying them time. I return to the classroom and move to my desk, but I’ve exhausted all I can do on this day.
My eyes move to them. They are laughing over something else, sitting there like three friends on the couches in someone’s living room. Gracie asks me a question, and I reply, but I can already hear the ticking.
Every paper I can shuffle gets shuffled. My desk is as tidy as it can be with a test upcoming. I pray their positivity will drown out the clock, but the ticking grows louder.
Donny pulls me back into their conversation. I don’t remember what gets asked, only their eyes looking up at me. I lose track of the year. Whether they are on the cusp of graduation or long since past it, I can’t tell. But it’s only for a moment.
“I like it in here,” says Gracie.
The guys nod.
“I like this too. I like talking to you.” I squeeze those words out before the tears. “But I think I have to go and I’m so sorry for that.”
They found the frog inside, but he is a hollow husk of what he once was. There’s something immensely sad about that.
But at least we know he’s in there.
That’s a start.
Tomorrow is meant to be a fun, light day, but there is somehow so much to do. But today, the first test day in years that didn’t conclude with every test graded, was somehow a good day. Mathletes will do that. Still: I will sleep and watch movies and spend time with people I love and write a whole bunch next week and be grateful to have that time and space.
Also: Fuck you, John Fisher.