Learning a new language is fucking hard. 

Have you ever heard a white boy from the Midwest try to properly enunciate something as simple as the phrase, “me gustaría unos tacos por favor?” (I would like some tacos please?). 

Yeah. It’s painful. 

Yet, for some reason, people in this country get ridiculed and shamed for speaking something other than English, or for speaking with an accent. 

I dare you to go learn another entire fucking language and be expected to perfectly understand or answer every goddamn thing someone says to you in a language they’ve been speaking natively, with everyone they know, their entire lives. 

Anyway…

I started learning Spanish when I was about 15. I’d already taken Latin (“For the LSATs.” Like I was ever going to take the LSATs, lol) my freshman year, but for whatever reason wanted to try Spanish as a sophomore. 

My ‘lil teenage brain, despite being filled with thoughts of hockey and Limewire and how horny I was and why were my boobs growing so fast?, was somehow wooed by Spanish. Maybe it could sense the utter heat of the Latinx culture from those cold, windowless rooms on the bottom floor of my high school—Spanish flowed into my head the way wine flows into Netflix-illuminated rooms during Coronavirus. 

Words connected with images and feelings and faces and places and most of it was alive and thriving and salsa dancing upstairs, but I was learning. 

When I went to the University of Minnesota at 18, I decided Spanish would be one of my majors. I thought I was pretty good at it… pretty sure of myself, alright...

And then I went to Argentina. 😂 But we’ll save that for another day. 

Sometimes people ask me, as the unlikely white girl who has somehow learned Spanish to a degree high enough that I’m considered fluent, “How do you start learning ?”

My answer unequivocally is always: start with the alphabet.

You see, every letter in Spanish is always pronounced the same; “A” is always pronounced “ah” - so manzana, mañana, and allá always sound similar.

It’s not like the shitshow language English, where “I” is pronounced/spelled differently in “differently” “night” or “sliced”. I literally have no idea how people learn English, lol. 

Some words seem to perfectly fit their subjects in Spanish, or in English.

Like how the word “bed” looks like a bed. Or las olas seem to fit “the waves” better in Spanish.

The best trick of all when you’re learning a new language, however, is this: vocabulary sticks in your head a lot stronger when it’s connected to something emotional. 

Like frogs, for instance.

Ranas

Last year I lived in Sayulita, Mexico for about three months.

I arrived with the intention to celebrate my 29th birthday, and stayed through Semana Santa (holy week)... and then stayed, and stayed, and stayed. 

Sayulita is magic. 

A lot of people hate it.

I love it. (reasons coming soon) 

Towards the end of my three months there, I rented this sweet little studio on the north side of town, just two blocks from the left-hand surf break.

It was the perfect stylistic balance between Mexico, cuteness, and comfort, managed by a punk-rock Argentine named Bruno, his sexy girlfriend, and his sweet little pitbull who would often wander up to my doorstep and leave “presents”. 💩

Like many kitchens in Latin America, la cocina was outside. It had this beautiful red countertop with a simple metal sink, dish dryer, mini-coffee maker, gas stovetop (which you had to light yourself), and a simple wooden table with two chairs. Green plants draped themselves from the ceiling, offering a respite of privacy from the landlord’s second-story apartment across the patio, and each morning I would awaken to the sound of birds chirping loudly (squawking, perhaps?) in the trees that surrounded the apartment. 

It was gorgeous. 

Sometimes I would awaken to my friend Luis—who was equally gorgeous—shouting “Kelsey! No mamés, las olas están buenas” Kelsey! Don’t fuck around, the waves are good.

Luis was (and is) one of those surreally beautiful beings you find in the Mexican surf towns who, despite being 24, had an ancient look in his eyes. Sober as a bird and with the sharp wits of one, too, Luis was fit AF with hair blonde from the sun and an easy laugh that begot his sometimes serious demeanor. We surfed daily. 

One morning I awoke to the orchestra of pájaros and stepped into the heat and noise of the kitchen to start some coffee. I noticed a small, sweet frog on the countertop—que linda—and filled the coffeemaker with local grounds, hitting the red “on” button. 

In spite of the heat, I still love a strong cup of hot coffee in the morning. Sometimes I make my own cold brew, but not today. 

The machine gurgled, the birds chirped, I put a clean mug on the counter, and turned to take some swimsuits and clothes off the drying rack. When I returned, the coffee was ready and full in the pot, its scent rich and fresh in all its glory; I lifted it and began to pour straight into the mug. 

But just then, FUCK!!!!! I saw it. 

The frog had climbed into the mug, and in my la-di-da morning routine, I had just scalded him with blinding hot fresh coffee. I yelped, throwing the mug by its handle into the sink, coffee launching up and onto the counter the way waves crash recklessly on rocky shores. 

It was too late. 

The frog was gone. 😭 

I scooped his limp body up in my hands, my chest filling with sorrow.

I was a frog murderer!

How had I not seen him in there? How had I not thought of him or wondered where he went? Tears welling, I wrapped him in a paper towel and gently placed him in the trash. 

“Kelsey!” Just then, Luis came ambling up the stairway. “Que ónda la pinche Kelsey?” What’s going on, fucking Kelsey? He asked. 

I looked up with him, eyes heavy.

“Acabo de… Maté un….” I just… I killed… I couldn’t remember the word in Spanish. “A frog.” I said finally in English. Luis gasped. 

“Una rana?!!!” He asked. “Ohhhh nooooooooo.” 

I explained what happened, and we mourned la rana in the trash.

It wasn’t his fault, or mine, really.

“Vamos, Kelsey,” Luis said, and we went to las olas. 

You never know when you could die in a scalding hot whirlpool of coffee… or a pandemic… or a wildfire. 

But I’ll tell you one thing…

I will NEVER forget the word rana.