The Value Of Stories

Everyone has read stories in their lifetime. We all have read different types of tales whether it be fiction or nonfiction. Stories can have some impact on us. It has value in some way or another. A story can open a whole new world for us as readers. It opens our eyes to new, scary, and exciting things. “Stories take us away on a magical journey to a whole world, a dazzling place we never knew.”

In reading The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life I realized that it is extremely important that we tell our stories because it’s who we are and where we come from. The Meet Street is a book on the author’s past, her memory of the past, and how it used to be. As I read Mee Street I grasped the idea that just by remembering my own past the people, places, and things in it I have a story right there. Whatever our story may be, its valuable because it’s our life experiences. I learned that a story is not valuable because of what type of story you are telling but because it lives in our memory. I traveled back in time in reading Mee Street. Like the author mentions in her blog, I was transfixed. Stories gives us hope, courage, and faith to lift ourselves up and go out in the world and be who we are.

In the author’s blog The Book of Days III: Part II Women Who Run With Wolves the author tells us that she had read a book by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes and that in one of her quotes she mentions that “Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman but she is an endangered species.” We as woman have a wild woman inside of ready to come out or locked away somewhere inside of us. For example in the story “Predators” we read that the narrator is in a bar where the television is on and news anchor are talking against homosexuals. In this case the author hides her inner wild woman who is a good, compassionate and creative person because she is afraid that the people in the bar will hate or despise her and maybe even attack her. The narrator’s inner Wild Woman was locked up away inside herself.

All stories have value in them. They can cure us and we can even find ourselves if we are lost. Tales can motivate us and inspire us to discover ourselves and live our lives to the fullest. The value of any story is actually uncovering that they make us who we are and want to become.