Spanish Lessons

Juan shows such patience
as I struggle to shape a sentence
using the pronouns he’s just introduced.
There are only about ten of them
and their use is perfectly logical
if you think in Spanish.

But my brain is wired in English
and has lots of trouble accepting that an
object can come before a verb.
It’s a little easier to tack them on the end
which is an option in some cases.
But it still doesn’t come naturally.

No estrese! No estrese! Reminds Juan
and of course, he’s right.
It doesn’t help to throw frustration into the mix.
That only makes it worse
and punishes my verbal cortex
which is really doing its best.

So I breathe deeply and try to see the humor
in sounding like a dyslexic five year old.
Poco a poco, Giovanni assures us. Poco a poco.

I am here in Mexico to learn Spanish,
but I think the biggest lesson of all might be
humility.