Lulls in the Conversation - Monday Memory

My grandparents' home was cozy and comfortable, quiet, calm, and clean.  It was a welcoming home.  In reality, it was more likely my Gramma herself who was welcoming. 

The living room was graced with a well-polished, arched mantle clock which sat atop the piano between two beautiful, tall, blue and white vases.  Sadly, I have few photos of the inside of my grandparents' home and none with the clock or vases.  (If only I'd known when I was young what photos I'd want now....)

Family congregated at Gramma's house for celebrations and holidays. After a large family meal the women did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen.  When the kitchen work was finished, all the women and girls—my grandmother, her four daughters, and several granddaughters—moved to the living room to sit and visit.  (The guys fled the scene!). 

Talk went from one conversation to another, meandering from the weather, news of family and mutual acquaintances, the best way to do something in a home (clean windows, clean woodwork), a new kind of cleaning product, etc.  All the things that couldn't be covered in a two-minute, long distance phone conversation or written in a two-page letter were open for discussion.  The topics were all over the place and I seldom paid too much attention when I was little.  I was just happy to be there, encircled by the love of family.  Who knows, my cousin Belinda and I may have been playing with dolls, or cutting out paper dolls and their clothes, or involved in some quiet activity that didn't disturb the conversation.

Suddenly there would be a lull in the conversation and all the talking would stop.  We sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes.  Invariably, after about a minute someone, usually Aunt Polly, would glance at the clock on the piano and say, "Well, it's 20 after."  Or, "It's 10 of."  As though that explained the break in conversation. 

When I was 10 or 11, this had happened often enough that I finally asked what that was 20-after and 10-of business was all about.  She told me that when a conversation lulls, it's usually at 20 after the hour or 10 of the hour.  And as far as I could tell, no one was watching the clock.  I didn't know what to think about that but then I noticed it seemed to be true, at least at my grandmother's house.  An unusual phenomenon, to be sure. 

Has anyone else noticed whether this occurs when you're sitting around having a conversation?  (And do people even DO that anymore, that is, sit around having conversations, with cell phones so prevalent in so many hands?)

The grandmother of this memory is Emma Virginia (Bickerstaff) Meinzen.  She was the only grandmother alive during my lifetime and lived just two houses away.  I visited her often and always felt not just welcome but much-loved.

-–Nancy.


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