Disculpe, señora
In which the poet demonstrates her dazzling command of language
I LISTEN TO SHREDDED CABBAGE 2025 Or, Hablo Español Como Un Bebé Disculpe, señora, I murmur to the woman on her step-stool, stocking bags of salad in the produce aisle. (Six weeks into lessons I have confessed to nearly no one, I expect an imperfect exchange, and hunger for it even so.) ¿Sí? she replies, brows raised as she peers down. Escucho cole slaw, I explain, resigned to English nouns but proud and certain of the verb as it rolls out, pristine in conjugation. The woman tilts her head and holds her drawn-in breath; then smiles, well, laughs. ¡Ah, esa! Not today, lo siento, mi amor, we don’t have today. I smile back, shrug, offer a gracias, and steer my cart away, and not until next morning do I understand which verb I had so proudly conjugated, how much amor had met me in that stranger’s smiling answer. Hablo como un bebé, I once imagined saying to any patient conversation partner, and though I did not say it in the produce aisle, this busy work-worn woman, twenty years my junior, embraced me, graciosa, with her laughter, became, for that one moment, mi mamá.
I studied French in high school and got pretty good. I studied German at university and got, well, fluent — helped along by two years abroad. My first adventure with foreign-language learning, though? Two cheerful little hardbacks in the children’s nonfiction section of the library in my hometown: Fun with Spanish and More Fun with Spanish. As a grade-schooler I checked them out repeatedly, took myself through all the two-page lessons and stories, and got my earliest taste for the intrigue and magic and occasional frustration of learning a language that’s not my mother tongue.
Decades later, at the start of 2025, I started feeling the nudge from somewhere: Time to really learn Spanish. No, seriously. It’s time.
Why, though? To keep my brain active in a way it enjoys? To acknowledge, at long last, that I live in a part of the United States where Spanish has been spoken much longer than English has? To be better able to talk with my neighbors and support them when the need arises? To remember all over again how it feels to have your working adult vocabulary and syntax reduced to early-toddler level, and what a character-building experience that can be? Yes, to all that. It’s time.
I started by making it one of my commitments during Lent, a daily online Spanish lesson. The incident described in this poem happened toward the end of those forty days; I’m more than a hundred days in now, and I’ve amassed nearly enough vocabulary to start sitting in on some in-person conversation groups, where I look forward to making more and better mistakes. And possibly writing more poems. ¡Ya estamos otra vez! Stay tuned.
Adorable. We should all give ear to coleslaw…it probably talks more sense than most politicians.
Elizabeth, me gusta mucho leer esto. Learning other languages stimulates so many parts of the brain, expands our view of the world, and, hopefully, leads us to be a bit more compassionate to people who don't know our own language.
"Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery." - Amy Chua
I think most language learners have stories about making mistakes. I certainly do, in just about every language I have studied. The more embarrassing, the better, because those are the ones that tend to stick. "I'll never make THAT mistake again" we tell ourselves.
Here's a quick one... a friend went to the local market in our little town in Spain and said proudly, "Quiero vender velas". The kind shopkeeper took him to the section of the store where he could find candles. He had mistaken the verb to buy (comprar) and used the verb to sell (vender).
I wonder if there's a place here on Substack for learners of Spanish.... My Substack is for learners of English, but if people are interested, maybe a chat space?
In any case, buena suerte con los estudios. Keep listening to the cole slaw. It will tell you wonderful stories!