my head is full of glue

I just got home from Serbian class.  My head feels like it's full of glue.  You know the feeling? As if your eyebrows are pierced with 1/4 lbs. weights.  Don't get me wrong.  I highly recommend learning the language of the country in which you live.  It is hard, though.  Here you are, this grown-up, accomplished person, but when you are learning a language you feel, well, absolutely stupid.  You can say hardly anything and then when you do you sound like Pebbles on the Flintstones (I just dated myself).  Oh, how many times did I come home from Spanish class bawling like the baby I sounded like in class?  It gets easier.  With every language you learn, it gets easier.  Maybe you get over feeling like an imbecile more quickly.  Maybe you realize that it's worth it because you see how people light up when they realize you want to communicate on their terms.

The amusing thing about the "glue" comment is that it reminds me of a poem I wrote when I was just becoming proficient in Spanish.  Even at the roughest point in learning, Spanish felt like honey in my ears.  Think of flamenco.  Smooth and melodic.  Macedonian, Serbian?   These languages mirror the traditional Serbian dance, the Kolo, complex, amazingly strong, yet incredibly beautiful.  You've got to watch this video to understand why my head, like my feet are oozing glue.  It's a little intimidating.

 Okay, now here's honey.

Learning Spanish

by Stephanie Rowlands

Her words flow over me like honey,

liquid and sticky.

Some of it sticks;

Some of it simply and quietly flows to the ground

and gathers in a puddle of goo.

But the part that sticks,

those golden pieces of sun

coat my mouth

sine my lips.

I roll my tongue through them,

around them,

pushing and massaging them like

the gap from a lost tooth,

supple and pink,

foreign and strange.

But after a while,

after enough sticking and prodding

my tongue gets used to it

until

the sharp edges of the cloudy white tooth

prick my tongue

and until

enough honey sticks

and my mouth is full

full of teeth

of cloud

of honey

and once open,

the gold will flow from my sticky teeth

into her ears

and some of it will stick

and some of it will simply and quietly flow to the ground

but enough to it will stick

and she will understand.

Tell us your language trials, tribulations and triumphs!