Sea one.
A week of new beginnings
Welcome to my journal! It echoes my thoughts and feelings as I journey through life. I hope you connect with what you read. If you enjoy this journal, please subscribe.
Wenn ich Deutsch mit meiner Freundin rede, geht alles ziemlich gut. Ich kann die Wörter die ich brauche schnell ausdenken, ich kann stresslos ohne viele Fehler sprechen. In mein neuer C1-Deutschkurs, ist es aber nicht so. Ich fühle mich ganz überwältigt, so wie ich am Anfang gefühlt habe. Alles is mir zu schnell, zu viel, zu kompliziert.
If you didn’t understand a word of that, don’t worry—you haven’t suffered a concussion. This week I started my new German course. Each month I’ve been progressing through the levels of fluency and I have now reached level C: advanced. The C may as well stand for Confidence-Killer, though. When I started my first beginner-level German course way back in December, I felt relatively comfortable. I had spent enough time with Duolingo and a textbook or two that I wasn’t totally overwhelmed by the content we covered in class. The shock of slipping back into a classroom setting six and a half years after graduating high school was more difficult to adapt to than the German grammar we tackled. That feeling remained fairly consistent throughout the ascending levels—I was certainly challenged at points, but at no time did I feel like I was drowning in past participles and verb conjugations. Then Monday hit me like a Tsunami. The jump from B2 (intermediate German) to C1 (relative fluency) was like being tossed into the middle of a roaring ocean. Dark and stormy seas of German grammar and vocabulary that, unbelievably, continue to grow in complexity threatened to engulf me. If the first paragraph of this journal caught you by surprise and had you staring blankly at the letters, trying to make sense of them, that’s exactly what reading the texts in my class felt like this week! Despite my months of German lessons, and the amount of skill that I have managed to scrape together, I am still gasping for air among ceaseless tidal waves of new words.
On Wednesday morning, while I was struggling to remain afloat in my German class, my girlfriend was homeward bound. Her niece was born on Monday morning and she is spending the week in her hometown to celebrate the birth of a new (favourite) family member. Thankfully, this weekend is a long weekend in Germany, so I get the opportunity to join in on the celebration, too. What a beautiful occasion! We get to celebrate a new life, the parents who will care for their new child, and the family that that child is born into. I expect that the weekend will be slow and meandering, but terribly exciting. We’ll all need lots of time to stand around and gawk in wonder at the newborn, waiting our turn to hold her for a moment. I can’t imagine much else will be said or done, we’ll be too focussed on dishing out as much love as we can bare before we jet off, back to work, when the new week comes around again. Or that’s my plan, in any case.
I don’t think I can quite appreciate how miraculous and impactful a new life is. Perhaps becoming a parent one day will enlighten me to some degree. It is not lost on me that I have spent the last seven months doing the same thing that this little baby will be doing for the next few years. I’ve been acclimatising to my new home, learning about the people, about the food and the language. The first time I saw snowfall was here in Germany, and when the summer is overtaken by the frigid winter later this year, the new baby will see snow for the first time here, too. Soon, her German will far outrank mine. Though I feel overwhelmed at the complexity and difficulty of learning a new language, I am undertaking a painfully simple challenge compared to hers. What an otherworldly experience it must be to be welcomed into this one.
In preparation for meeting her this weekend, I’m making my girlfriend’s new niece a gift: a soft toy. It’s a little African penguin. There’s not much symbolism to the African penguin in particular—other than we’re both a little far away from home. I guess I like the idea of tying her home to mine in a small way. I’m making it (and getting quite invested, as you can see) because I want to show her parents that I care. I want to say, somehow, that I want to be present for the life of their daughter (I haven’t really been able to call myself her uncle. I’m not sure that I can claim that role, yet). The penguin is a token—to show my excitement and my dedication and my willingness to be involved in her life.
The same sentiment keeps me afloat in the choppy seas of learning a new language. I want to show that little girl, her family, and myself, I suppose, that I am excited and committed and willing to be here in Germany. I’ll show up to the classes. Even when they’re difficult. Especially when they’re difficult. Putting the hours and the effort in—whether sewing a toy or learning a language—is the best way I know to show that I value something. Ultimately, my advancing German skills and my involvement in this little girl’s life both point to one initiative: I am eager for Germany to become my home, and I intend to make it a good one.
I was under the impression that I could read German. It seems, though, that I can only read the really important stuff like the price of coffee and the way to the bathroom. If you enjoyed this journal, please share it with some you love. (Or even someone you just sort of get on with!)
Such a beautiful post, Jeremy! Und ich find' es sooooo schön, daß die frischgebackene Nichte einen Onkel-Jeremy-gemachten Pinguin kriegt! 🐧