I tried to learn a new language for you. It was not an easy one. There were no textbooks, or online lessons, or vocabulary cheat-sheets. There were only my hastily scrawled notes on my palms trying to understand. There was only me, practicing my pronunciation in the mirror, watching my mouth form around unfamiliar vowels, my hands trying to learn how to hold the consonants so you might be able to better understand my accent. There was only you, trying to teach me a language that had never been transcribed. You lend me one of your earbuds on the bus and play a song I cannot understand because there are just chords. Just brushstrokes of sound. Just melody threading notes together. The music is trying to say something, but you are trying to say something too, by giving me this rhythm. I cannot understand yet. But I listen anyway and these are the ways in which I try to learn. You memorize my coffee order but forget my birthday. You never say you miss me but you say you miss the way working in silence together feels. Your eyes are always closed when we touch and you refuse to ask me questions first. I do not understand what these things say, or what you are trying to tell me but I listen anyways. And these are the ways in which I try to learn. Once, we don't speak for too long and the first night you spend in my bed again I ask you, before I turn the light off, what it means. You do not look at me. You say you don't know. So I flick off the switch and curl around myself under the covers. Your hands find my hair, find my waist, find the soft skin of a scar, find the place where the flesh is thinnest between the world and my heart. I ask you what that means. You say it means, "You still have me." And so I kiss every one of your finger tips and in this way I respond, "I am glad." I let my legs tangle with yours under the blankets and in this way I say, "You still have me, too." In this moment you have not learnt my language yet either. But we are both learning. And some things are hard to misinterpret. You take me to the movies to watch the same film for the second time. I do not understand what this is trying to say or what you are trying to tell me but I listen anyways. On the drive home, we take the leftover silence of the theatre with us, and I ask you what you meant when you did this. You are still picking the quiet out from your teeth with your tongue and so I say, "In my language, this means, 'I would choose the silence over your voice.' In my language this means 'You are only worth the past, over again. There is no moving forward, only backwards. Until we fall into the oblivion from which we came'. " You pull off the road. You shake your head. Say, "In my language, this means, 'the quiet is hard sometimes but never with you.' In my language, this means 'I think we have time enough to reread stories twice'. This means, 'you are the familiar and for this I am grateful'. This means, 'I do not need adventure to stay'. That ‘I am content to sit with you and the dark and devour a piece of the world together’." And so I come to learn that your leg slipping over my hip when I am just on the cusp of sleep means: I forgive you. Learn that a load of laundry started before wash day means: I’m sorry. Learn that when the clean clothes are folded and left on my side of the bed, it means: I am very really sorry. Learn that the hour long shower means: not now. Learn the biting of the nails means: now. Now, please. I learn the Wednesday evening pancakes mean: I love you. But so do the bad jokes and the 1:30 a.m. texts about tomorrow and you telling me about your day without me having to ask. I learn the offer to change the oil in my car means "Let me think I can keep you safe, please." I learn Indian takeout containers left on the counter means a bad day unless there is no rice and it's Thursday, because then that just means working late, and in this way I learn about the context of a phrase. You learn things too. Pick them up slowly through daily conversation. Murmur details you’ve absorbed in passing. Nonchalant but nervous. I do not correct you despite the mis-used vocabulary. I just smile. Because I know what you are trying to say. I wince sometimes when your poorly built sentences crumble quickly, everything so obviously foreign to you. Yet I do not offer to teach you until you ask. Because when you finally do, I know for certain what you are trying to tell me. You are saying: I want to know how to speak to you in the language you feel most at home in. I want to be able to know you in the words there are no direct translations for. I want to be able to find you in the dialect you retreat to when the day has gone on too long. You are saying: I want you to be able to tell me everything I want you to know that I want to try and talk to you even when it is hard. You offer to walk with me in the fall afternoon even though you hate the crunch of the leaves that you say sound too much like endings and I ask you if this offer means "I love you" or "I do not want to be left behind" and you are looking away from me when you explain that sometimes things can have more than one meaning. I tackle you half screaming, half laughing when you buy us the concert tickets for my birthday and you ask me if this means "Thank you" or "I love you" and I am smiling when I explain that sometimes things can have more than one meaning. I come home late to find you sobbing on the bathroom floor and I hold you for hours. I show you videos of babies laughing until the tears subside long enough for you to kiss me with salt sorrow stained lips and I ask against your mouth if this means "Thank you" or "I love you" and you whisper of how different things can have the same meaning and in this way I learn of synonyms. Sometimes the learning of a new language is difficult. Is frustrating. Is silences that scream two things in dissonance. For the hardest things to define are the absences. For there are a million subtle ways the pronunciation of quiet differs Depending on what you are trying to convey. Sometimes learning a new language is Mistakes. Is misunderstandings. Is apologies For violating customs And muddling unfamiliar proverbs. I'm sorry, This is not my native tongue. But I am trying. I am learning. If you are willing to teach me. Sometimes a new language is something we become fluent in. The bilingualism comes easy. It rolls off your tongue like second nature. You realize now there are new ways to love in this language. But there are also new ways to hurt. And new ways to heal. And new ways to apologize. You realize there are new ways to know someone when they are not afraid to be misheard. Sometimes a new language is a patchwork quilt of simple words and poorly stitched grammer. Sometimes I pull out a few words at the restaurant to impress you. You grin, less at the phrase, more at the gesture. Sometimes I stumble over the words and you help me up, help me along the sentence, because you know it means the world to me to try for you. Know I am attempting to say, “Look, I am here for you.” And so you show me how you say this in your language. Even if I put the inflection in all the wrong places, you are happy to share what is yours. Sometimes all we can do is learn to understand. The words never come out right so we stop trying. But we listen. We nod. We laugh. We hold them at all the right parts of the story. Sometimes the greatest gift you can give someone is to understand What they are trying to say. When she makes paper flowers and sends me photos of them. I know she is trying to tell me: "Wait. I got out of bed today and created something beautiful. I thought of you in the slow process of the cultivation of this miracle." And I do not know how to reply. Not in her language at least. And so I don't. But I know what she means. Sometimes it is enough to understand someone. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes a new language is not for us. We tell ourselves we are too old to pick it up. We tell ourselves it is too difficult. Too foreign. Too complicated. We try for the sake of saying we tried. But we don't. Not really. In the end, we know how to say hello and goodbye and thank you, probably a handful of curses too. Sometimes we know how to say I love you, in the formal tongue, with textbook pronouns and rigid verbs. Sometimes learning a language is Things lost in translation Is “How was I supposed to know what that meant?” Is “Why didn't you just tell me?” Is “I wanted to. But I did not know how.” Is Being too tired to roll your r's and remember the right tense. Sometimes learning a language is screaming everything you cannot translate at the language barrier between you. Hoping they understand. Hoping they don't. But there is something unmatched about being welcomed home in your mother tongue. Something about being forgiven in words you could never misinterpret. About being called to bed by the familiar. There is something unparalleled about being loved in your own language -Tahira Rajwani