"¿Estás embarazada?"

Photo by Monica D. via FlickrI can't remember what it's called, what the proper terminology is, but I remember the concept. I've googled it all the different ways I can't think of, with all of the different keywords that pop into my head, but every time the results pop up, I get the same ones, the ones I don't want. "Three stages of learning a foreign language," and "Ten annoying things tourists should never do."

A couple of years ago, I was overcome with an eagerness to learn Spanish. We have a growing Spanish-speaking population in our community, some of them folks I really love, and I was drawn to communicating with them in their native tongue. A group from our church was planning a trip to Guatamala. Sara and Deysie offered to teach some rudimentary language lessons, and, even though I wouldn't be traveling with them, I joined. 

Sara started the first class with the expected basics, a song, and a little bit of foreign language philosophy. There are three mental stages of confidence, she said, of learning a foreign language.

First, you learn to spit out a few words, say your name, ask someone what time it is, and you feel so smart, so stupidly optimistic. This, she explained, is when people make silly mistakes, but they don't really care, because it's all still fun and exciting, and, I might add, a bit of an ego boost.

But then, if you continue learning, you begin to realize how little you actually know. You become very self-conscious and overly aware of your ineptitude. My young friend Susan gave an example of how it can happen; you're sitting in Honduras, finishing a delicious meal with one of the local families, and one of the guys belches loudly. Flexing your amazing powers of the native language, you exclaim, "¿Estás embarazada?" And you think you're a real hit at the table, because everyone erupts with laughter. But the real reason they're laughing is because you just asked the guy if he was pregnant. 

After that, you're more cautious, and I suppose you have a choice to make. You can say, "Que vergüenza!" and soldier on to phase three, where you really do become proficient. Or you can leave what frighteningly little you know at the table with the pregnant belching Honduran man and give up, go home, and leave the foreign language to someone else, someone more naturally talented. 

If you've read my recent post, When Rock Bottom Becomes a Solid Foundation, where I talk about the serious crossroads we experienced when my husband unexpectedly lost his job in November of 2010, you'll know that I made a very deliberate decision at that time to take the plunge and pursue writing, my longtime passion, as an income-earning career. Last Wednesday marked a year since my first piece was published in our local newspaper. I was elated. It filled most of the front page, with the photo occupying a heck of a lot of real-estate, and I was super proud. It was great beginner's luck, I thought, and it surely wouldn't happen again. But it did. Week after week, my profile pieces, my features, my photos made the front page. It's not the New Yorker, I know, or Time magazine, but, still. And while I can't say that I was confident in my abilities, I was definitely in that first phase of learning a new language, stupidly optimistic. 

Shortly after, I pulled a couple of envelopes from the mailbox. One was my first writer's paycheck. The other was the notification that three pieces I'd submitted to a regional writing competition, the first I'd ever entered, had all won first place, earning me $300. I was ecstatic. We went out and celebrated with a fancy lunch. I left a big tip. 

The local paper has been fabulous to me. They're good people. They've given me great flexibility and allowed me to spread my writerly wings. As a result, I've earned a few more regular freelance jobs, had a few more pieces published, and was able to keep, in the words of George W. Bush, putting food on my family. 

But now, I've entered that second phase of learning a foreign language, and I am flooded with self-doubt. I've taken a look around at the others who are speaking fluently, carrying on entire conversations. I have breathed in, and held my breath, over pieces by authors like Josh MacIvor-Anderson and realized how incredibly inept I am. I understand now, with horror, that all this time, I've been talking about how fantastically pregnant I am when I really should have been saying that I was so awfully embarrassed. 

Yesterday was a tough writing day, a tough day in general. It started in the morning with a cup of cinnamon tea and a lot of promise, but it was quickly hijacked. The son in African was pick-pocketed--lost his money, his debit card, his passport, his immunization records. He messaged me from an internet cafe in The Gambia. He's coming home early, he said, abandoning his plans of returning to Guinea Bissau, his second home, the real destination he'd set his sites on.

The mailbox opened to no fat envelopes. The numbers in the ledger have been red for a little while now. The handle I'd had on my credit card debt shattered, sending splinters in my clenched fist, and I don't have health insurance to have the deeply imbedded pieces removed.

My steady diet of white rice, almonds, Reese Cups and Dr. Pepper, consumed in front of a blinking cursor, has grown my waist so that I barely recognize my own body, clad in my husband's sweatpants because my laundry had to wait for one more paragraph, one more revision, one more submission.

It took the entire day, punctuated by interruptions and distractions, comparisons and covetousness, to finally, as the light drained from my writing room, fall short of my goals, except for the one where I successfully punched 140 character into the Tweet window. 

Stephen King says in his book On Writing that it is impossible to make a great writer out of a good one. He might be right. I'm not affecting false modesty when I say that I believe I am a good writer, but not a great one. I want to keep writing. Certainly I do, because I can't stop. But, right now, I feel like pushing myself away from the table, saying, "Que vergüenza!" and heading to the hiring kiosk at Wal*Mart. 

But that's just today. Tomorrow, something good will happen, right? I'll be buoyed by a phone call, or an e-mail, or by finishing a work and sending it in, and then I'll press on, write more, and, could it be? improve, get a better grasp on the language.

And then maybe, someday, while I might not be great, at least I'll be fluent, and I'll sit at the table, down a delicious meal, and possibly even converse without embarrassing myself.