What pointers basically are is not particularly hard to grasp. What is harder to grasp it what can be done with them and how you can shoot yourself in the foot with them in non-obvious ways.

I think I only understood much of it once I learned Rust, because you realize: Ah, that thing I once did in C is something that maybe ahouldn't be possible at all without extra steps. Even if I were to nwver use Rust again, this definitly helped to understand how to use pointers more safely.