Some of the earliest childhood memories I have involve family gatherings, when members of the extended family would assemble for some sort of holiday or celebration, or when a few family members would come over to our home simply for the purpose of getting together.

As a child, I often enjoyed these gatherings; there was usually a lot of warmth and reassurance in them. Looking back, however, one thing that strikes me about much of this socializing was a marked absence of silence. As is frequently true of such get-togethers, the talking was almost constant.

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I suppose this situation is typical of almost all gatherings, not just family ones. The dinner party is the most obvious example. It is as though silence could disclose some sort of terribly frightening Void. And what is being avoided are questions of who we are and what we are actually doing with each other. These questions live in our bodies, and silence forces them to the surface. If such questions ever get openly asked, the family often falls apart, and the dinner party usually breaks up in a strained and embarrassed way.