I commute to work, these days longer than I would prefer. I generally like driving, and I’ve done this for so many years that the distance isn’t really an issue. I listen to the radio or my iPhone’s music or nothing at all and I watch the scenery change with the seasons. This is probably the best part of the trip.

Right now, there is an odd combination of tree leaves and grasses that popped into existence during the too-early-very-warm days of March and the normal flush of redness as maples and other trees start budding up and getting ready to flower and put out leaves. The wild cherries are in bloom in many places, forsythia are in bloom and have been, daffodils are waning: all in all well into the Spring.

I have been dabbling with an audio language program. I do NOT find learning languages easy, never have. In high school french I was good when reading and pretty good at writing french but the conversational side was really really difficult. I just could not distinguish various words and catch the separate words in a sentence.

So here I am driving along, language CD doing its thing. “Do you want to go?” “Yes, I’d like to go.” “I like to try.” “I cannot say.” “How do you know?” All these basic language things that get you going in conversation. Part of my brain keeps wondering – what does that word look like? Is he saying teen or tee? This is bad because as soon as my brain wanders it’s not keeping up and I’m stuck about two-thirds through the second lesson. Just as they’re adding how, when, because, something, nothing, I’m stuck back wondering “what did she say?”

I’ll keep trying. I did cheat a bit and try looking up a few of the words, which don’t look anything like how you might expect from the pronunciation. So maybe I can use that to let go. Writing this isn’t as important as being able to say it. I did use a stray phrase like “yes, I’d like to go” in lieu of “are you kidding me you strange people? I think I hate all of you!” the other night and it was funny enough to make me laugh.