14 of 30 - cloud between the trees?

I'm on day two of a self-directed course called 'The Artist Way' I started on Monday. It's three months long and it reminded me of that idiomatic phrase - can't see the forest from the trees. Many people know this about me but I don't get these types of phrases. Things like 'kill two birds with one stone' or 'gold at the end of the rainbow' I just misuse the terms. But, when I was thinking about the course this phrase popped into my head and I became quite excited with my ability to properly apply a phrase to my experience. Clever, eh? I must admit I needed some help getting past the fact that 'can't see the forest from the trees' is not proper English but I did get finally get it. I think the difficulty with this dialect of English is because my peeps (ie ancestors) we're speaking a different language so intuitively I don't get it.