Madaha Kinsey-Lamb and Egeria Bennett

[00:06] EGERIA BENNETT: Hello, my name is Egeria Bennett. I'm 72 years old. Today's date is September 27, 2023. The location, we're here at Mind Builders. My interview partner is Madaha Kinsey Lamb And the relationship to my partner is. I'm a friend, I'm a colleague. I'm a former co worker. I'm a former chairperson. But most of all, I'm her sister.

[00:47] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: And my name is Madaha Kinsey Lam. I am 73 years old. Today's date is September 28, 2023. The location is Mind Builders Creative Arts center. The name of my interview partner is Egeria Bennett, and the relationship to the partner is sister, friend, colleague, co worker, and partner superhero.

[01:34] EGERIA BENNETT: Your question.

[01:37] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Egeria, I've been thinking and wondering what you remember about how we met and what brought you to mind builders.

[01:48] EGERIA BENNETT: Well, we met while I was doing an internship in college at Bronx Community College. We were at North Bronx Family Service center, and I was working with a gentleman named Michael, I believe his name was. And I was doing yoga classes for adults in the morning. You know, it was part because I was in a yoga class, so I had to do community service. And you were there. I mean, you were there as the education director. And I remember something funny that Michael used to say, oh, you don't want to work for her because she's real strict. She's going to look at your timesheets and everything. So I used to be afraid, you know, I said, oh, no, I don't want to work for her, you know. But the following semester, I was doing another internship for a class, and it was an education, so I had to go to Madaha, you know, and that's how we met, you know, was doing that education course. I remember the import. An important thing about that time, which was in the, you know, late seventies, you know, is that I took these children from University Avenue and I took them on a trip to the village. They had never been outside of University Avenue. They had never been to the village. And, you know, their comments was that, you know, people were so different that the village was full of people who were on drugs and who used alcohol. And I said, you know, I gotta take these kids to the village. And I did, and I took them to a comic book store where, and they saw artists on the street. And the people, they were painting eggshells and they were painting with rice. So they were so impressed. And when they came back, they wrote a story about the village, about their visit to the village. And I think that's where we connected you know, and what brought me to mind builders was, you know, some time after that, maybe about a year or so, you know, because I was still in school, I had a bunch of cats. And I remembered I got to figure out a place to put these cats that I have, and I don't want them to be destroyed. So I had called you and asked you if you knew the name of the farm that we used to take the kids to in the summer, because I would go to the farm and ask them, oh, don't you want some cats? You know, I figured that was the safest place for them. And you turned around and said, oh, yeah, egeria, do you want a job? So I said, a job? You know, a shock. Like what? You know, you had started mindbuilders since that time at North Bronx Family Service center, and you were in that small studio, that small office space upstairs, 35 50 White Plains Road. And you just asked me, yeah, come on down, come do this job. I said, oh, you know, like, I could teach class and I could teach yoga. And I insisted, like, I can't do that because I didn't study, you know, body movements and how that would go. But we sat down and we talked and you came. And I thought, well, I am going to need a job when my daughter comes back from St. Croix at twelve years old, and I want to be close to her so that she'd have a place that she could come after school. So I thought that was the perfect setting to work at mind builders, which was down the block from her school, and she could just come to mind builders after school. So initially, that's what brought me to mindbuilders. Yeah, as the receptionist in the front, you know, that's what brought me there.

[06:09] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: I remember you coming over to my desk and you had told this. I don't know if I remembered it on my own from the beginning, but I didn't remember a lot about you at the North Bronx family service Center. I remembered you coming into the office because you live in the community and seeing a pile of bills on my desk and saying, and you looked at some of them and a couple were past due or near due, and you said, do you need some help? And that's the meeting that I remember.

[06:48] EGERIA BENNETT: I do remember that. I was standing and we were talking, and I looked at this desk and I saw all this mail. I said, oh. So I said, is it all right if I open it? And I opened the mail and I saw letters and they were past due, and you were paying so much interest on the past due amounts. And I said, you know, if we paid this on time, we would have enough money to pay the people, you know, based on the interest that was happening. So by then, you turned around, you said up, okay, you're in charge of the mail. You could now open all the mail. So that's how. It's just that it evolved. The job evolved. You know, where I saw, well, this is a need to open the mail to make sure we pay certain things on time so that we don't get charged the interest. And, you know, it just evolved from.

[07:45] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: That in terms of how mind builder started, because I don't think when you started helping, I don't think I had any money to give you a salary. When you talk about wanting a job or needing a job and needing the help or being able to pay things on time. And look, during that, that was that second year, because the first year was at Crawford church, the daycare center downstairs. But, yeah, that second year, the $14 a month that parents were able to pay for dance would pay for the teachers, but it was no one else, so you weren't getting paid. When you said, I see you need this, it was like, oh, yes, I need this. And if you could do it for a while for free, you know, and what were some of the other things that you did at mindbuilders, some of the other tasks that you did and any classes that you took?

[08:41] EGERIA BENNETT: Well, first of all, I did this, the reception thing during the week, and then I looked into, you know, looking at the restrooms and stuff. I said, who cleans the restrooms? Nobody cleans the restrooms. Right. So I said, you know, you gotta have somebody to clean the restrooms. So I would come in on Saturdays, you know, on. I would come in on the days that mind builders didn't have classes, which was Mondays, and I came in and I cleaned the restrooms. So I was the receptionist on Saturdays and during the week, and I was the custodian on Mondays. I took on that role. I said, hey, we gotta make sure this place is clean for when the kids come.

[09:27] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: This is like 1970, 919 80. 1980.

[09:32] EGERIA BENNETT: Yeah, 1980. Because I was working down the hall from mine builders with neighborhood family service center. I was working part time there. That's where most of the money came. I guess if it was money there either. But I don't know. I wasn't. Hmm. I want to say I wasn't interested in getting paid at mind builders because it seemed like the purpose. You know, one thing we had a discussion about with mind builders was opening a school. And we had the same thoughts, you know, that it takes a special kind of teacher to be a mind builders. Because it wasn't just about dance, it wasn't just about music. And when we interviewed people, we asked strange questions, you know, like, what kind of shoes do you like? You know, not can you teach dance, but what kind of shoes do you like? Because the way that they carried themselves made us say, oh, this one could be a good teacher that they had to be more about. Not that they could just teach dance to dance movements, but that they knew that this child could be a whole person, that this child could evolve into something else. And dance was just a venue, music was just a venue. But it was more important to know that any child, any child could come in there and could evolve to become the greatest thing that they had the opportunity to become, you know. So I think that really stuck with me, you know, that was what made me drive to, you know, do the custodial thing, you know, pick up the paper when it fell on the floor, you know, more than the pay.

[11:43] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: And it was kind of this partnership also, because you may ask a question in an interview that may seem like it's off the wall, but when we talk about it afterwards and say, but they said so and so. And the reason this, I mean, it's evolved to the point now where I always ask one question in particular, which is like asking a teacher whether it's dance, music or whatever, how would one of your students describe you to one of their friends, you and your class, how would they describe what you do and the kind of teacher that you are? That's really important, you know, and of course, the references, because we're built around. It takes a special kind of teacher to be a mind builder. When I started it in 77 with that tutoring service, so making sure we get those references and ask those hard questions as well, but they have to be nurturing, challenging, exciting. And so we would ask questions that would let us know whether they could fit the bill.

[12:50] EGERIA BENNETT: That's right, that's right. And that they believed in the child.

[12:54] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Yeah, yeah.

[12:55] EGERIA BENNETT: That they really, when they saw a child, that the first thing that they did was they believed in the child, you know? And again, it was not to be the dancer. It's to, you know, they took the child from where they were, from whoever it was, you know. And we've had some special needs children, you know. Oh, man. That really, you know, shown, you know, show themselves when they dance, when they perform. And it's because of that question that we ask, you know, I laugh. I think about when we were interviewing the architects, you know, for the building, which is fast forwarding, but when we were interviewing the architects, I would sit behind. I'd let you do all the asking all the questions, and then I'd say, but Madaha his tie doesn't match his outfit.

[13:54] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: How's he gonna be a designer?

[13:55] EGERIA BENNETT: He's gonna design our building? Or did you see the shoes that he had on? You know, and that was the premise that, you know, that we kinda used, you know.

[14:09] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you think of some of the times that we had together that stand out, those memorable moments, those funny moments and so forth, I mean, we worked some long hours, long days, you know, and I remember most, I guess, in terms of at the end of one of those Saturdays, you had said, let's take a ride.

[14:40] EGERIA BENNETT: Yeah.

[14:42] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: I mean, and we had our children.

[14:44] EGERIA BENNETT: Yes.

[14:45] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Each of our daughters in the backseat.

[14:48] EGERIA BENNETT: We were working on application for the building, you know, on a HUD application. And HUD was like, outrageous, you know, as far as application for funding. And we worked well up until 730 that night. Cause we had to get to the post office by 08:00 at least for the post office here uptown in the Bronx on Ohio 49th street. Because if we had gone any further than that, we would have had to go to 34th street, which closed at twelve midnight. Right. And I had just come back from driving a tractor trailer. Remember, you left for a year. I left for a year to go ride, drive a tractor trailer cross country. And I just came back and. Sorry, Adrian, can you explain what that year was? That was 1980 to 81 to 1981.

[15:54] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: I had just met you. A year, not even a full year.

[15:56] EGERIA BENNETT: Yeah, I wasn't at mind builders. I had just started at mind builders. I had worked in the summer. And then September came, and the opportunity for the person I was with came for him to get a truck and drive a tractor trailer, which he and I know, knowing each other from early on, had already talked about. And the reality came. And I said, he asked me to go with him. And I said, look, he begged me to go with him. I said, look, I will go with you on the road for four seasons, summer, winter, spring and fall. And then that's it. And that's when I sent my daughter to St. Croix and I went on the tractor trailer. I left in September. And I know, you know, Diane, Diana, she kept asking me, like, how could you do this? How can you go? My daughter's dependent on you. I said, you know, nobody says when a snake shed skin that it didn't hurt. That was the famous saying. So I just, I mean, it was hurting me to go, but I knew I just had to go, you know, and I went, I went track to trailer in for a year. And then when I came back, I came back and I said, look Madaha this is it. I'm here. Let's start this school, let's get this going. I'm not going anywhere anymore, you know. And that's when we wrote the contract for HUD and we drove to the post office and we had our daughters with us, you know, they were twelve and 13 and we were feeding them, or you were feeding them on the portable cooker. I used to call it a Bunsen burner. Like we had fish head soup on a Bunsen burner is what we had for dinner because you always make sure everybody ate no matter what you didn't. Everybody must eat. So we had our fish head soup and we put the girls in the car and we said, come on, come on, we're going to drive over to the post office. And we drove to the post office and I had this itching, I said, you know, I just want to drive. I just don't want to turn around and go back home, you know, just like that. And I said, we have our daughters in the car, right? They don't have to go. No babysitters at home. Nobody has any live fish at home to go and feed. And you just said, well, yeah, well, let's go for a drive. And when we started driving, next thing I knew we were in Jersey and we saw the path mark there. We said, oh, let's get something to eat, you know, the path mark was open 24 hours. And then I said, oh, let's drive some more. And we kept driving and kept driving and kept driving until we ended up in Washington. And that's where we ended up in Washington. And the next day. Cause we had to sleep in the car the next day the girls got up and it was sunshiny and cherry blossoms were out and we were walking around the Washington monument and we remembering Doctor King and then we all just hand in hand and the two girls in front of us and we started singing we shall overcome, we shall overcome. So yeah, that was one of our adventures. And you called home and your mom was on the phone asking, she said, where are you? He said, well, I'm sort of in Washington. And your mom said, called your dad, said, jesse, this girl is going crazy. You gotta go and talk to her.

[19:56] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: And then on to Maryland to see your dad. Yeah.

[20:00] EGERIA BENNETT: Yeah. That was interesting, because I hadn't seen my dad in 19 years, and I said, oh, it'd be interesting for me to go ahead and try to call him. So I looked in the phone book, and his name was in the phone book. We had phone books then, and I got on the cell phone, and I called on the telephone, in the public telephone, and I called him, and he answered, and I said, oh, my God, this is 19 years I haven't seen him. And now he answered the phone, and you said, go ahead, call him. I said, call him. And he invited us over. Invited us over. And we had dinner at the chief's luncheon because he was a chief in the navy, and we had dinner and got pictures of all of us. I met my brother and my sister for the first time. My brother was 16, my sister, my sister was nine, you know, and they met Eladia, my daughter, for the first time. She was 13. And we just had one big family reunion, and then he just put us on the road. The right road, because we were going the wrong way to drive back home.

[21:16] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Vacations on the fly.

[21:18] EGERIA BENNETT: On the fly.

[21:19] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Fit it in when you can.

[21:20] EGERIA BENNETT: Yes. And we didn't have any attachments. Everything we had was in the car with us.

[21:28] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: When you talked about us looking at the whole child and the idea of having a school. I had started with a tutoring service in 77, moved into having dance classes when I was going to Harlem to take my daughter. She was four then, for dance classes and just looking and saying, just for a month, saying, I would do this a little different, you know, why can't they listen to jazz in addition to european classical and Stevie Wonder? Why couldn't they be doing that to ballet? Why couldn't they be mixing and learning the whole globe and then looking at that whole child? But we never told the teachers what we really expected them to be able to change children's lives in a 1 hour class a week.

[22:26] EGERIA BENNETT: Yes.

[22:28] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: It was a bit too daunting, yes.

[22:31] EGERIA BENNETT: If we told them ahead of time, but we were so fortunate. I don't know what it was as far as who we hired, but we did hire the right teachers, because kids came back and said, did hire the right teachers.

[22:49] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: It's changed my life.

[22:50] EGERIA BENNETT: Yes. And they were children, you know, who may not have performed very well, you know, under other circumstances, but they kept coming. They kept coming back, and I would say we've had a. The right teachers. Like, for instance, we had, like, Alvin Nelson, when he was teaching piano, children would come to him and would say, I want to learn to play the greatest love. I just want to learn to play and there be a beginner student, or I want to play one love, and they would be a beginner student. So you said, well, how is he going to teach that to a beginner student? So we eliminated the John Thompson famous beginner piano student book, which was the.

[23:49] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Only thing I ever had. That was my only piano lesson one year.

[23:53] EGERIA BENNETT: And me too, me myself too. And Alva actually took that music and he transposed it to beginner level. I still have some of those sheet music from them because my daughter took piano, but he transposed many of those tunes into the same premise that John Thompson was built on into the beginner level for beginning students. So that that's what made kids really excited to come. Cause they're playing what I wanna play.

[24:33] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: And that was the thing that the teacher had to be able to make it exciting. Yes, they had to, because as I still would say to teachers as recently as last year, before I retired a couple of months ago, is that if they're not in the class, we can't help transform their lives. They have to be there. You gotta keep them coming, make it exciting, find out what they're interested in. And they're interested in some varied things. We got some opera students and all of that. But Alva came back this summer. I don't know if you know that.

[25:07] EGERIA BENNETT: Right, right. Yeah.

[25:08] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: We had to call him in as a sub, so he's also come back. But that's the kind of strategy that teachers have used in general. I was wondering in terms of someone or something that you feel changed your life at mind builders. Someone or something that made a difference in your life.

[25:36] EGERIA BENNETT: Yes. Mister Edwards. Ah, Mister Edwards. Mister Edwards. At the beginning in 1980, you know, he had had a stroke and he used to climb the steps to that office every so often. You know, maybe once a month or twice a month, he'd climb the steps and bring us a book of stamps. I'd never forget him. He'd always bring us this book of stamps. And I used to say, wow, this man, he had a stroke, you know, he used to play saxophone and it just impressed me like he had a stroke. And he made his way up those stairs, you know, he was limping, you know, and made his way up the stairs just to bring us a book of stamps. And the book of stamps were valuable even though we had bulk mail, you know, but it was so important, you know, to him. And I never knew why or how come, but I just felt the energy of him bringing those booker stamps. And to me, that felt that that was the premise of mind builders. That's what mind builders was about, you know, whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you wanted to do or contribute to mind builders was important. If it was important to you, it was important to us.

[27:03] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: And he was just a man in the community, an elder in the community. I don't even know how he found out about us, but that, I mean, that was something major that I, that surprised me, I guess, in the whole process is how much the community, I mean, they built this, how much they were willing to give in terms of time or whatever they had, you know, oh, I can run the cafe downstairs, you know, I'll go to Costco and bring in oatmeal and cup of soup. Because in between classes, kids need stuff that people would take on responsibilities, you know, and own this, you know, that we couldn't have done it without that kind of ownership.

[27:45] EGERIA BENNETT: I think it's because, well, for you, what you have allowed for every individual that comes through mind builders is the thing of self actualization that people can self actualize. Because even for me, when I first came, you know, you know, I was shy, I was reserved. You know, I was always willing to do what was necessary in the background, you know, what I didn't know about myself was that I had a creativity. I had something to give back to the community. And that what I had to give was important, you know, that it was important. I didn't know it was important. I didn't think about it as being important. But in that sense, I just felt that, you know, I had the opportunity to grow. Like, if I wanted to go back to school, you would always encourage it and say, yeah, go on back, you know, go back to school. Even when I had to leave to go do the tractor trailer, you kind of, you were hesitant, you know, where you going? Like, what? Are you kidding? And I was, like, saying, oh, but I gotta go. I gotta go. And you encouraged it. You said, okay, all right, you know, so you encourage it. Like, you were always encouraging of whatever a person, you know, was saying that they need to do for themselves. So I say that, you know, mind blows is a place where you can self actualize and you can really become who you can, who you're able to be. And even at that, it's like, who you're able to be, you know?

[29:40] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Now, you had a background in dance also.

[29:43] EGERIA BENNETT: Yeah, I had a background in dance, but I had never studied the body, you know, studied it like that. I did have a background in dance because I was in dance classes when I was in college. I danced quite a bit, like when I was in college at Bronx community, but I also had a background in psychology, you know, so, you know, I felt like that was encouraging. You know, I could use both things, but I just felt my passion was in music, in the arts, in the arts in general, because we did have defined arts. You know, we started evolving and bringing those things in, and we just felt like everything is art, artists, you know, it's artists in general. It's not just dance and not just music. You know, it's classical ballet. It's the fine arts. It's the video arts. You know, it's video arts and everything. We just slowly evolved into taking it on and bring it into the environment.

[30:50] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: And as we would see the need and as we would see the things that students and families needed and what was happening around us as well, I mean, it was always about, this was not going to be something that was exclusive. This was not just for middle income, middle class folks who can pay. Yes, I mean, I came up with the $14 I was looking at, what would I be able to afford to pay for my daughter at that salary that I was making? I didn't make a salary for mind builders for a few years, you know, still working part time as a consultant with the North Bronx center. But it was so important that no child, no family would ever get turned away, that this had to be, especially for those, quote unquote, at risk, those who couldn't normally afford it, they should not get turned away. They would be welcomed. And you found a way to do that.

[31:47] EGERIA BENNETT: Yes. Our work exchange program. Like when, years ago, there was a little girl, and she used to have classes that were so far apart, and she'd have so much time where she was sitting there. Her name was Dornika Dorniga. And so one day I was sitting there, and I'm stuffing envelopes, you know, for bulk mail, and she's just sitting there, and she said, can I help? So I said, yes. She was about ten years old, and I let her sit in my seat and stuff the envelopes. I showed her how to make it so that the zip code shows in the envelope. I said, you have to stuff it this way. And after that, she just felt and took on this job, and she sat and her chest was up high, and she just said, I'm the secretary, I'm the secretary. And then it occurred to me, like, wow, she's doing something that we would normally have to pay somebody like $5 an hour to do. And the other time was, it came formal to make this work exchange program happen. When a woman came, she came, she had five kids, and she put five kids into the program. She wanted her boys in martial arts, she wanted her girls in piano, and she wanted the girls in dance. And she said, I could help. And I said, well, how? So I created, I said, well, I tell you what, for each class, you know, equal to the tuition, if you do 3 hours of work a week, that would cover the cost of a class. Okay? And that's how it started. And we formalized it. And she signed a document that she would be there for 3 hours. I even calculated it and gave that information to our accountant so that he could include it as far as bartering was concerned. And after her, then she started signing up people who were in that position. And we found a way that either they could do work exchange or they could go on to the scholarship that you had the funding for.

[34:08] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: I wanna. I mean, as you came up with these ideas. Cause I'm even now telling people about, oh, Egeria started this work exchange. You know, I knew that we wanted everyone to participate, but the other things that I admired about you, and that I may never have told you, was you dedicated, you gave, you sweat all hours, whether it's costumes or whatever. But you also had this balance. You knew that there was a priority at home, too. Your family, your child, you know, and that, okay, it's seven. It's time to go. I gotta go make dinner. And you were able to leave, and I never learned to do that. So I admired that you had your priorities straight, and you were able to balance that part of your life as well, which I get consumed like. But you had mastered that, and you knew what was important, as I found out later, some of the things, you know, you think that this child over here is at risk, but my child can't be, because look at all we have here. But you had it straight, and that's something. Maybe you can teach a course in that work life, family, balance and priorities.

[35:32] EGERIA BENNETT: I tell you, you know, it's. It's hard. Like, remember when our girls were together and I went to the theater and I came back and you said, oh, the girls aren't here. I said, what do you mean the girls aren't here?

[35:48] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: They ran away for one night.

[35:50] EGERIA BENNETT: Yeah, but they ran away to somebody that was in mine. Builders. They knew they could only run away to so and so's house. You know, you could only go to this house, or you could go to that house, because they ran away to my house once. It was Laura's daughter. It was Johnny Goff's daughter. And all of a sudden, I had all these girls in my house. You know, they were tired of their moms, you know, telling them what to do, to do and all this stuff. But the one thing, like I said, because of your nurturing and all, they knew where to go. They knew I could run away to miss Laura's house. I could run away to miss Johnny's house. I could run away to miss Egeria's house. That was it. I just got to find you there. You know. It was all such a big family that spans such a wide gap, you know, a wide circumference of what we call mind builders. What we call mind builders. And mind builders isn't just in the building. Mind builders spread out throughout the community, you know. Yeah. We had hands reaching across spectrums, you.

[37:00] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Know, and their children and their children's.

[37:02] EGERIA BENNETT: And their children, children's children. You know. Even when I saw a girl come here, she said, oh, yeah, I'm here. I said, aren't you the granddaughter of somebody and you're bringing a child, you know? So, yeah.

[37:19] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Thank you.

[37:20] EGERIA BENNETT: Mind builder is a special place.

[37:22] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Thank you.

[37:23] EGERIA BENNETT: Thank you for all the things that I've, you know, been able to grow, you know, so.

[37:33] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Ah, onward.

[37:37] EGERIA BENNETT: Onward and onward. And we have a school now I feel, like, complete, you know, like we do have a school. Cause you have the UPK.

[37:44] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Yeah.

[37:45] EGERIA BENNETT: You know, you have the UPK in here. So it was accomplished when we said in 1980, I said, I'm gonna stick with you till we get a school. And we have a school. You know, we have little ones and.

[37:57] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: A four story building, a former municipal building.

[38:01] EGERIA BENNETT: Oh, gosh, that's another story.

[38:04] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: Ribbon cutting, $9 million renovation, all of that stuff.

[38:09] EGERIA BENNETT: And they used to say, you girls are crazy. You girls are out your mind.

[38:15] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: How could you think you could do.

[38:17] EGERIA BENNETT: How can you, too, do it? It was because it was just the two of us, you know, so. Yeah.

[38:24] MADAHA KINSEY-LAMB: And so many others that joined in along the way.

[38:27] EGERIA BENNETT: So many. It has come such a far, such a long way, you know? Yeah. Okay, so we're going to do about 10 seconds of silence now, and then we'll stop the recording. It.