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May Stories: World Tale: More Precious than Gold (Cameroon)
Wondrous are the ways of being wise. The stories, Paying Attention, What it Takes, and A Way of Knowing, explore different kinds of wisdom.
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 Tortoise decided wisdom was more precious than gold and began to collect wisdom wherever he went, from whomever he met. Whenever he discovered a bit of wisdom he put it into a large pot. For days and weeks and months and years he collected what he found and heard until the pot was full. Tortoise believed all the wisdom in the world belonged to him.
 It had snowed the day before. Melted then froze. As I prepared to drive the 22 miles to the university, it began to snow again. Hard. More than a little apprehensive, I drove to the on-ramp of I-95 hoping it had been plowed and sanded. It hadn’t. As I drove, I passed remnants of accidents—some already cleared, a few in the process. I drove slowly, lights and blinkers on, swearing at drivers going too fast, leaving too little room between their cars and mine, hoping no car would crash into me, which almost happened a few times. I arrived at my office drenched with sweat despite the cold.
 In May 1985, I was in a hospital being treated for leukemia. Despite the medication I was taking, suddenly, for no reason doctors could identify, my platelets (blood cells that clot) began to fall to the point where I was in danger of bleeding to death, even from a small cut. I lay in my bed, worried about the upcoming scheduled trip to Bethesda, a huge hospital complex where I’d have a series of tests to determine if I had a second blood cancer.
 In 2010 I was awarded a PEN grant to teach memoir writing to 8th graders at Capshaw Middle School. After the first project, where I was assigned to an honors class, I asked to work with groups who had failed their Language Arts tests. Honors students get lots of perks, others—not so much.
I told the students the only requirement for the program was that they write about an important moment in their lives, meaningful to them. The program was designed for me to meet with the group for ten sessions. By the third class most students were well on their way to writing their memoir, knowing what they wanted to write about. One student stared at his blank paper. Wrote a few words. Crossed them out. Sighed. |
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May 2025
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Nancy King is a widely published author and a professor emerita at the University of Delaware, where she has taught theater, drama, playwriting, creative writing, and multidisciplinary studies with an emphasis on world literature. She has published seven previous works of nonfiction and five novels. Her new memoir, Breaking the Silence, explores the power of stories in healing from trauma and abuse. Her career has emphasized the use of her own experience in being silenced to encourage students to find their voices and to express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with authenticity, as a way to add meaning to their lives.
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