Around the Fire – How My Grandmother Taught Me the Art of Listening

I grew up listening to my grandmother’s stories, but what always amazed me wasn’t just what she told me; it was how she told it.

She didn’t rush. She didn’t look down at a phone between sentences. She didn’t need a visual or a clickbait title to hold attention. She simply spoke.

She told me about her childhood, growing up in a house with eight siblings. Every night, after a long day of chores, they would gather in the living room. There was no TV, no internet, just her mother’s voice. She said her mom had this way of weaving stories that felt almost magical. Some nights, the stories were about her grandparents’ journey from the old country. Other nights, they were about something funny that had happened in the village or a lesson about kindness, humility, or hard work.

They would listen for hours.

What stood out to me most was how much attention those moments required. Nobody interrupted. Nobody “checked out.” The only thing glowing in the room was the fire in the fireplace, not a screen.

When my grandmother talked about those nights, she always smiled. “That was how we learned,” she said. “That was how we connected.”

In a way, those storytelling sessions were their form of social media, long, slow, and deeply human. Everyone had time to speak. Everyone had time to listen. It wasn’t about speed or stimulation; it was about connection.