I was practically a child when a friend of a friend asked me if I would conduct an interview for her high school video project about the avant-garde artist, John Cage. She was running the camera and needed someone to interview him. So off we went to Washington D.C. where I sat down with Mr. Cage. To this day, I am not sure how she secured the interview. But, without realizing it at the time, this encounter taught me about the art of listening. For every question I posed, Mr. Cage sat in silence. I recall feeling uncomfortable but something stopped me from blurting out the next question or trying to rephrase the first. Perhaps it was his aura of kindness that gave me the courage to sit in silence with him. Eternity passed and then he spoke. As I worked through my questions, I came to understand that the silence was as important as the answers —for it was in that eternity of time that his thoughts were gathered. Nearly a decade later, when I embarked on a career as a documentary filmmaker, I knew not to fear the silence in the interview, but to welcome it. In fact, I have found that sitting in silence with my interviewees can sometimes bring forth revelations about their personal life they had not contemplated until that moment.