Yeah, that listening thing. You can hear a lot when you listen.

I have to say, I become frustrated a lot when talking with Dad. His viewpoints on a lot of things are remarkably different than mine, and I want him to understand, to hear me, to digest what I'm saying, and, well, let's be honest, to stop being a butthead and change his mind so that he agrees with me. Fundamentally, that's what most people want: to be right and have people agree with them.

And things change when I listen.

I hear his frustration with how things are. I hear his dream for a better world where everyone is rational, and honest, and good. I hear his sadness in a wish that won't come true. I hear his heartbreak in the losses he's had. I hear his tone shift into lecture mode when he knows he's lost his audience. I hear his annoyance at being unable to remember things. I hear his loss in at being unable to do things he used to be able to do, activities and solutions that came easily before. I hear his fear of a future full of being told he's doing everything wrong.

And eventually, I hear his gratitude in a life well lived, a live well blessed. I hear his joy in a job well done. I hear his humour in the jokes he tells. I hear the hopes and dreams he still has. I hear the goodness he has, his unshakeable belief that all people have good in them. I hear the stories he's told me a half dozen times already and I see the joy it brings him as he tells it to me for the 73rd time. I hear the pride in the new lessons he's learned, the new technology he's mastered.

And I hear his desire to try. He hasn't stopped trying to make the world a better place. He hasn't given up yet.

There are so many things Dad and I disagree on. When I listen, I realize there are so many things we agree on, we've just had different experiences up until this point. When I listen, I hear what he's trying to say and not what just what I want to hear.

I think I needed to listen to understand that.

Unrelated: this post so did not end up where I thought it would.

For reasons I don't know (something about gluten-free Cheerios, maybe?), Cheerios are in the news as of late. This amuses me, as I recently polished off the box of Honey-Nut Cheerios with the boys, and thought, meh, too sugary.

Me.

Too sugary.

Did you ever expect that day to happen?

(No? Me, neither.)

Today's grocery run included an unfamiliar store layout, an argument with Dad, a slight compromise of principles, a moment of being lost, and seven bags of groceries that cost really more than I expected. In the end, I was able to have this:

I have to say, this was the most delicious bowl of Cheerios I've had in a while. Plain Cheerios and unsweetened almond milk. Yum.

That whole "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" thing?

Totally applies to a house remodel.

What the designers and architects and magazines and builders and showrooms don't tell you, however, is how things will look and work day to day.

Take stainless steel appliances, for example. Wow, they look great on the showroom floor. They look AMAZING in the pictures.

They look like ass with little kid and big kid and small adult and large adult handprints all over them. And those thing are a pain to keep polished sparkling clean, and who would want to keep them that clean anyway?

And that sink? That stainless steel, double sink with the deep bowl on one side? As far as sinks go, those are gorgeous. I love them. I want one in every house I own.

And you know what?

They are impossible to keep clean.

That deep bowl? Try washing a full sink full of dishes. Leaning over into the deep sink puts a strain on the lower back. Oh, boy, after a day of cooking, I'll be happy for the "I cook, you clean" rule for all the non-dishwasher pots and pans I might use.

Which is not to say, I don't totally love the stainless sink I have in the house. I totally do. It's lovely and beautiful and great given it's only me in the house so I have few dishes to wash. The water splotches and general non-perfect surfaces tell me I'm using the sink. It's being used for its purpose and, you know what, I *get* to use this lovely sink. I think that's awesome.

So, while the grass is greener where you water it, the stainless steel is perfect where you use it, even when it has smudges on it.

I'm reading a book about life and how the brain works. In it, one of the lines reads, "... think about or 'creatively visualize' your front door..."

The door that came to mind was not my own front door. It wasn't even a front door.

The door that came to mind first was and is the back door of Dad's house. The red door, lined in white, with a tan background of aluminum siding, a red porch before it.

Which is odd, in that that door wasn't the front door for the longest in my life, nor the most recent.

And, yet, it may be front door of the house at the last time I felt safe and comforted and loved and rooted and home, all at the same time.

If only I knew the future, maybe I wouldn't have felt that way. It still feels a bit like coming home, though, visiting Dad.