coffee and gnoccis

It starts simply. A lunch out with some members of the school board, and an ELCA visitor. It's early October at this point and I've been speaking Spanish for less than two months so nobody expects much of me. This fact would typically set me off on a petty and fruitless effort to prove myself (I don't do well with feeling dumb) but now it is a welcome scape goat. I can sit back and listen. Try to listen at least. Maybe I'll understand half of what is said, maybe I will laugh at the right time, and maybe I can get through this entire meal without muttering more than ten words. 

I focus on my menu, I repeat my order over and over in my head like a mantra. "Gnoccis con salsa bolognese por favor" "Gnoccis con salsa bolognese por favor". The waiter comes around the table, I barely register what the others are ordering, my entire identity has become "Gnoccis con salsa bolognese por favor". He looks at me, I play my part flawlessly, I celebrate raucously in my mind, and I think I am finally free of this burden until I realize he is still looking at me. So is everyone at the table.... Did he ask me something? 

He looks down at my slow blinking face and repeats "y para tomar?"

Every single beverage in existence disappears from my brain. I hadn't prepared for this. Why for the love of god had I not considered I would need to order a drink as well? My mind is grasping at any type of liquid I can think of for what feels like hours but must be only seconds. Finally I mutter a small "...Cafe?" 

If people were looking at me strangely before, I was a certified zoo animal now. 

"Cafe?" the waiter repeats back, his tone reaching something like that of a preschool teacher whose student just told him that grass is purple. 

My face is red, my hands are shaking, and finally the word agua makes its appearance fashionably late. Much too late. I can't change the order now, I don't even know how to say 'never mind' in Spanish and I've drawn enough attention to myself as it is. 

So I nod. 

"Si...Cafe."

He scribbles on his small pad and is off. 

Across the table, Carmen, a woman from church chuckles. She leans over to one of the men from the school and asks in a voice that would make even the most confident of people shrink back in embarrasment. "Cafe?...con... gnoccis?"

The man leans back and mutters conspiratorially "es una costumbre, es una costumbre de los estados." 

I have neither the will nor the Spanish skills to explain that no it is not, in fact, American culture to drink coffee with your pasta. It is however Me culture to spiral into complete mental turmoil over the inability to order a beverage. 

When the food comes I stare at my plate and the traitorous coffee, willing my growing tears of frustration to keep contained. Of course, its typical here in nicer restaurants to include a small treat with the coffee, a cookie or chocolate, to end your meal. So because the universe needed to get one last jab in, the cafe arrives with a small plate of pound cake alongside it. Delicious yes, but definitely not meant to be eaten in conjunction with tomato sauce. 

The entire table chuckles at the situation, and I am forcing myself to laugh along. I am a speck of dust in this moment. I am a single streetlight down a stretch of highway in an expansive desert. I am the smallest and loneliest I have ever felt in my life, and I pass the rest of the meal in a daze. I feign listening, smiling when others smile, and nodding along when the tone turns grave, but if asked afterwards what was said I could not describe a single conversation from that entire afternoon. 

A few weeks pass, and I am in church sipping coffee after service with a few of the women from my congregation. Carmen comes over, looks at the small coffee cup in my hand and gets a twinkle in her eye. She begins to tell the story of our interesting lunch together to all the older ladies of the church and at the end her tone turns pensive as she says, "And its so interesting. I never knew it was a common occurrence in the US to have coffee with your meals." 

I had had enough time by now to see the humor in the situation and while still extremely embarrassed by my Spanish level, I could laugh along with her for the pure absurdity of how much one silly mistake had gotten blown up in my head as this massive failure. 

At this point however I thought it important to clarify that not all Americans were weird enough to order coffee with their pasta, and used google translate to explain what had happened when I was ordering. How overwhelmed I had felt at lunch, how I didn't want to make a fuss by changing my order, and how I was too embarrassed to try and explain my struggle afterwards. She read the short text from my phone, threw her head back laughing and then quickly relayed everything to the ladies standing around us. 

I was suddenly surrounded by four abuelas stroking my arms and cheeks, laughing and saying "ohh pobrecita, que pobre. Pobrecita!" There was a fond sort of pity and understanding as each of these women saw how lost and overwhelmed I felt, still being so new here. What had been for me a complete failure of an afternoon and a glaring reminder that I did not belong here, to them was simply a funny afternoon turned anecdote to tell after church.

This was also, I think, probably the first time they were seeing any type of personality from me outside of the classic "smile and nod". Most of my interactions with people from church up until then had been polite asking how I am, a small attempt at speaking which I could really only say "oh, que lindo. Mhmm. Si" and some awkward standing around before they moved on to someone who could actually contribute to a conversation. 

However now they had something to talk to me about. The absolute disaster that was my language skills. Every sunday after church became time for the older women in my congregation to check in on how my spanish was going, they waited patiently for me to find my words and supplied those I didn't know, not with condescension but with care. Each time she had the chance, Carmen told my coffee and gnocci story. At a meeting with my Coordinator and Pastor, to congregation members over brunch Easter morning, and even to a group of delegates and the President of the IELU at our nationwide assembly. I think I could come back to visit my congregation after a whole decade and the first thing she would ask me is "todavía tomas café con fideos?"

Over the course of a year meanings change. Massive blows to the ego soften to a playful jab, and the sharp sting of feeling stupid and small is soothed by patience and inevitable growth. Growth in learning, growth in community, and growth in being ok with being wrong. Being ok with feeling like you failed. Making mistakes, drinking your coffee anyway, and sticking out the meal because cultural or not, it is always a good time to have a coffee.