 In 1988, as part of my work for a PhD I chose a seminar in Hawaii: Cross Cultural Community Cooperation. To feel rested before beginning the first session I arrived a few days early. Even in my summer clothes I was too hot. I looked around at Hawaiian women, many of whom were wearing long flowing loosely fitting dresses in bright patterns. They looked a whole lot cooler than I felt. I was wondering where I might find a place selling dresses like they wore when I noticed an advertisement for a shop that made muumuus to order. I didn’t know what a muumuu was but when I saw the image of the dress, it was exactly what I was looking for.
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 I was 11, playing a made-up kind of baseball with a group of kids, our last game before the end of summer. I was at bat when the pitcher accused me of cheating. I vehemently denied this and told him he was just mad because I was a better pitcher than him. He rushed at me, fists waving, calling me names. We started punching each other, me with my eyes closed, furiously banging away at him. Suddenly I heard him curse me as he stopped hitting. I opened my eyes. He was gone. I burst into tears. One of the boys asked why I was crying, that I should be cheering. I’d won the fight. I didn’t feel like a winner. I felt crappy.
 I read the student’s note. He’d flunked out of the university but was sure he could pass the two courses needed for re-instatement if he could be in my production of Peter and the Wolf. I was a teaching assistant, (TA) with no power, but I was moved by what he wrote and contacted him.
He was tall and skinny, visibly nervous, as he walked into my small office. He told me how much he loved theatre and how, as a kid, he’d listened to the record of Peter and the Wolf so much he’d practically memorized the words. He begged me to let him join the production. I told him I had no authority to cast him if he wasn’t a registered student. He looked so miserable I said I’d check with the Chair to see what could be done.  She reminded me of a porcupine, ready to shoot quills at a moment’s notice. And yet, when I began each memoir class by telling a world tale, she, like the other 8th graders listened attentively in the class sponsored by PEN, an international organization for Poets, Editors, and Novelists.
One morning, after I told one about how Hummingbird faces her fear and helps Panther recover his eyesight, she told a student who’d come in late, “You missed a really good story.” Fast forward to the end of class when we spend a few minutes reflecting on the session. She spoke up. “I hate the stories you tell. Why do we have to listen to such stupid stories?” I sighed, let the other students talk about their experience, then ended the session. She was one of the most difficult students I’d ever worked with. I felt as if her behavior changed faster than I could blink.  In 1947 I was eleven years old and had been wishing for a pet for a long time. I told my parents I’d settle for a dog or a cat. What I got was fish, in a tank, which was not my idea of a pet. One day, alone in our apartment, the phone rang, startling me. It was rare for anyone to call during the day and when it did, it meant trouble. I picked up the receiver, worried that something bad had happened.
It was my 6-year-old cousin, John. “Hi Nancy, our cat had kittens and they’re ready for adoption. Want one? |
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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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