Hi!

How’s the weekend going?

I still can’t believe it’s June. JUNE. It’s cold and drizzly in San Diego, which makes it even harder to believe. And that coldness is all that anyone can talk about, all that anyone can complain to me about while I take their coffee order. Which is fine. I mean, this is Southern California. We’re supposed to be one rung down from heaven itself or something. And most of the time, we really are. But if the sun doesn’t kiss us for a few days, we get angry. So every year, for these two, gray months, we band together and cry about it. My coworker actually said today that she “just really wants to be sunburnt again”. An iconic California quote.

Anyway. Today I want to share an embarrassing and ultimately liberating thing that happened to me this week.

MY NOT SO SHOCKING WEAKNESS

So as I’ve mentioned, I’m taking this Spanish class right now which, in case you were wondering, has been some fresh kind of hell. You don’t realize how many strange and unexplainable rules exist in languages until you try to learn a new one. It’s masochistic work. We’re intermediate and I think that our attempts at pronunciation still make my teacher’s ears bleed. One kid still pronounces the H in “ahora” and “hoy”. He makes us all feel a little bit better, but barely. It’s hard.

But because of this, it’s quite humbling. I haven’t felt this uncomfortable in a classroom since they stopped making me take math classes. Growing up I was always a good student, but I had a weakness. I could read and write and spell with ease, but when it came to math it was like that part of my brain was missing. It was always my one B. Which was pretty good considering that I failed math tests all of the time. And because of that, I stayed humble. I never felt like the smartest kid in school because there was always math to prove me otherwise.

But then I got to college and math went away. It finally gave up on me. We ended what had been a long, emotionally-draining relationship and went our separate ways. Picking my classes felt like putting on the hat at Hogwarts and joining my people. My fellow mathematically challenged, literary inclined people. And that was glorious. For the first time ever, my grades were spotless. Impeccable. I had found my place. So for these past few years, I’ve gotten pretty used to feeling confident in all of my classes. Whatever we were doing, I was cool with. I knew I could handle it. My brain knows how to study and think about and process literature. It’s this magical thing that I’ve earned with my own blood, sweat, and tears.

But this Spanish class. Oh my god this Spanish class. It’s like math all over again. Normally, I’m offended if I get a low A on anything. Which is totally obnoxious, I know. But when you spent Friday nights reading in the library instead of winning beer pong, you get to say shit like that. Anyway. In this class? I literally just want to pass. I’m talking seventy percent. I’m humbled all over again.

ANOTHER WORLD

So yes, it’s rough. It’s awkward. It’s a breeding ground of mistakes that roll off of my tongue like water. But it’s also kind of wonderful. It’s a challenge. It’s forcing me to to embrace imperfection. I’m learning a new form of expression, of art. I’m gathering a whole new collection of beautiful words that don’t even translate into English. I’m learning that English cannot even begin to contain the essence of this world. It’s far too limited. There are words out there for entire experiences that I would have otherwise never have had a name for. Like sobremesa. It refers to the time that you spend hanging out around the table long after the meal has ended, to the hours that stretch late into the night as stories are shared over wine. No one has anywhere to be. There’s no rush, no stress. It’s just time spent well. So from only one word, you learn a piece of culture. You begin to see the world in another way, from another angle. You absorb a different approach to living. If this class teaches me nothing else, that would be enough.

THE FUN OF FALLING

Oh but the embarrassing thing that happened to me. I was skating to class the other day because I had work right after and wanted to save time. Also, because it’s summer and I don’t have to compete for space with all the frat bros on their boards. It’s a golden opportunity. So I’m riding along a main walkway, feeling like my true authentic self, when the world gets blurry and I just fly right off. I don’t even remember what happened. I know I had a heavy bag throwing off my balance but other than that it was a total trip. I was suddenly just on my side, stretched out on the ground. Luckily, it’s a Southern California college campus and no one cares about you, so I was saved the embarrassment of anyone rushing to help. For once it was nice to feel invisible. I just got up and kept riding.

But the strange thing? It was kind of fun. The feeling of my body hitting the pavement reminded me of being a kid again, back when I would sneak in through the back door and bandage all of my scrapes before my mom could freak out. It reminded me of what it feels like to really touch this world, to get dirty with it instead of just walking over it all day. Do you know how freeing it is to just sit down on the pavement for a minute? How grounding that is? So as embarrassing and painful as it was, and as massive as my bruises are, it was quite freeing.

It was also a literal representation of what it feels like to be taking this Spanish class. Flying through the air one moment and feeling every bony angle of your body hit cement the very next. And yet, not being too hurt by the whole thing. As hard as this Spanish can be, and as hard as the ground felt when I fell, both have made me smile. After I picked up my board from across the way and realized that I wasn’t dead, I laughed. I had fun, the kind that I never have anymore. And so I’m having fun struggling with an unfamiliar class too. I’m not taking it too seriously. I’m embracing the scraped knees and stinging palms and awkward stumbles.

If I could ever explain what it’s like to be a writer, I would say that it is experiencing something small and seemingly mundane for about thirty seconds and then dissecting that moment for the next several days until you have somehow placed it within the larger frame of your life. It was just a fall. I was only riding a skateboard. But it meant something. I knew it the second I hit the ground.

Happy Sunday.

all my love, -m.

JOIN THE FUN

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