I said, “I’ll be thinking out loud about my painting; you don’t need to listen.” My husband’s answer, “Nancy, I never listen.”
How’d he know to answer? Sometimes when I asked a queastion he’d answer with a prfound statement pertaining to the thing on HIS mind. I’d respond to his subject and ask my queastion again at a deeper level.
He’d repond to my question and add a statement that dug deeper into his subject. I’d challenge his answer and make a statement off to the side but pertaining to his response and add a further thought to mine.
We could go on a long time and maybe add two more subjects before we ended by laughing at the exercise.
Occasionally a thing would be very important to me; so I took hold of both sides of his beard, just below his ears; I got close, almost nose to nose; and quietly I’d say, “This is important…” He knew to listen well, otherwise listening was play. I miss John.