Loud and Slow - Feb 1 2026

 

Loud and Slow

Feb 1 2026

Just speak loud and slow

and keep it simple,

they’ll understand. 

As if they were either stupid

or stubborn.

As if English was the universal language

and they were just out of practice.

As if their colourful patois

was a touristy thing,

like the folk dances

and changing of the guard.

You become a child

in a sea of foreigners

comfortable in their foreign tongue.

Limited

to basic wants and simple thoughts,

to a nod

a smile

the niceties.

It’s a relief, in a way;

no politics or philosophy,

no expectations

or witty repartee. 

Even beginning to feel invisible

is a welcome release from the agency

you usually feel

 —  the centre

around which everything turns,

the self-sufficient man

who needn’t stop to ask.

They say foreign travel expands;

seeing how differently others live

yet how much alike we are.

But this helplessness

may be even more enlightening;

feeling invisible,

forgetting yourself,

being politely misunderstood. 

And how even the proudest man

can!t help feeling humbled

to see little kids

speaking perfect French,

feel chastened

when they go way too fast

for his high school Spanish.

Try to learn a few words.

Apologize for your accent.

Shrug off the mixups

with a sheepish smile.

And let the humility 

of reverting to childhood

teach you that it’s not so bad

to watch and listen

and not interrupt.

That you don’t always have to be 

the smartest guy in the room.

That you’re not even the star

of your own life,

just a walk-on

without a speaking part.

Of course, now there are real time translation apps. And English almost is the universal language:  someone almost always speaks it, even if just sort of. So it’s getting harder to find yourself stranded in an incomprehensible sea of language where you can’t make yourself easily understood. 

I don’t travel. Or at least not anymore. (I do in my head, but that’s a whole other thing!) Yet I can certainly see how humbling and instructive travel can be. Not just gaining a new appreciation of your privileged 1st world life; not just being reinvigorated by novelty and unexpected challenges; but also having to be in the world stripped of the intellectual pretension and complexity language affords. What’s left of you without that carapace of words you normally hide behind? (Hmmm, am I just speaking for myself here?!)

When I shared the first draft with a friend, I prefaced it with this:

Curious how you — a world traveller of sorts — react to this. Because I do not travel, and so speak with no authority. I’m all guesswork and projection. Like all my poetry:  written from my easy chair; living in my head!