Sarah Kay – Hands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn0zAUVkCgEds

People used to tell me that I had beautiful hands. Told me so often in fact that one day I started to believe them, until I asked my photographer father ‘hey daddy could I be a hand model? To which he said ‘No way!’. I don’t remember the reason he gave me, and I would’ve been upset but there were far too many stuffed animals to hold, too many homework assignments to write, too many boys to wave at to, many years to grow. We used to have a game, my dad and I, about holding hands. Coz we held hands everywhere. And every time either he or I would whisper a great big number to the other, pretending that we were keeping track of how many times we had held hands. That we were sure this one had to be 8,002, 753. Hands learn more than minds do. Hands learn how to hold other hands. How to grip pencils and mould poetry. How to tickle pianos, and dribble a basketball and grip the handles of a bicycle. How to hold old people and touch babies. I love hands like I love people. They are the maps and compasses with which we navigate our way through life. Some people read palms to tell you your future, but I read hands to tell your past. Each scar makes a story worth telling. Each callused palm, each cracked knuckle is a missed punch or years in a factory.

Now I’ve seen middle eastern hands clenched in middle eastern fists, pounding against each other like war drums. Each country sees their fists as warriors and others as enemies. Even if fists alone are only hands. But this is not about politics, no hands are not about politics. This is a poem about love, and fingers. Fingers interlock like a beautiful zipper of prayer. One time I grabbed my dad’s hand so that our fingers interlocked perfectly. But he changed position saying “No, that hand hold is for your mum!” Kids high-five, but grownups shake hands. You need a firm handshake, but don’t hold on too tight, but don’t let go too soon, but don’t hold them for too long. But hands are not about politics. When did it become so complicated? I always thought it was so simple. The other day my Dad looked at my hands as if seeing them for the first time and with laughter behind his eyelids, and with all the seriousness a man of his humour could muster he said “You know you’ve got nice hands, you could’ve been a hand model!” And before the laughter can escape me I shake my head at him and squeeze his hand 8,002,754.

Sarah Kay demonstrates a beautiful understanding of how hands are the gateway of learning and understanding one’s past, and how hands play a crucial part in love and accepting others. When I first read this poem, I thought Sarah was talking about how she and her dad play a game of hand holding and that it was their own little way of showing love to each other. That really connected with me when I first read it because I do the exact same with my dad, and the hand holding is truly a way we express our love towards each other. However, I kept reading this poem a few more times, and I realized that when Sarah spoke of her dad, she didn’t mean for it to be the main message, her main message was how hands allow you to connect and love others. When she spoke of her father she was merely giving an example of how hands allow you to show your love to others, and I only realized this after I read the poem maybe 7-8 times.

The speaker uses a lot of facts in her poem, and it is not a very opinionated piece of writing. She states facts about how hands are used to “hold other hands…grip pencils…mould poetry…tickle pianos…dribble basketballs…and grip the handles of a bicycle.” These are all facts of what hands are expected to do, but what we don’t understand as human beings is that the importance and depth hands have in creating connections between individuals.

During the poem, the speaker states, “Now I’ve seen middle eastern hands clenched in middle eastern fists, pounding against each other like war drums.” The speaker uses a simile to describe how people use hands as a form of violence and hatred, and she uses this to explain that hands should never be used for such a thing. Hands are for loving, and for showing who you truly are. Hands shouldn’t be clenched into fists, and in the poem Sarah states, ” But this is not about politics, no hands are not about politics.” Clenched fists mean warriors or enemies, and that implies war, which is always caused through politics nowadays. Sarah brings this new perspective to the poem because she’s trying to get her point across, which is that Hands are about love, and her main theme in this poem is love and how hands show unconditional love.

In the poem, the speaker states, “…maps and compasses with which we navigate our way through life.” Sarah is metaphorically stating that the power of hands is so extreme that it is what leads us through life. Often times, as I was growing up, I always heard the phrase, “through the eyes you can tell the amount of pain and experience ones been through.” This phrase never made sense to me, it didn’t click in my head how people could see the pain or experience just by looking through someone else’s eyes. It confused me greatly, and I always thought I was weird because people around me all understood it. I got that “aha” moment about hands that people got about the eyes.

After reading this poem, I have got to say that it is actually the hands in which tells you ones past.   For example, if one has calloused hands, you can infer that one may play a musical instrument such as the guitar, or maybe the person likes to write a lot. You can draw conclusions about someone through their hands, and some conclusions may not be true, but you can tell a lot through the way ones hand feels or looks. The person may have scars on their hands and that tells you that maybe they were in the military, or maybe it was a punch, a stupid accident, or some traumatic experience.

While reading the poem, I never really got an atmosphere or tone in my head. To me it was just a bunch of beautifully written words, and I thought that I wouldn’t be able to understand the perspective Sarah sees this poem from. However, I found a video of Sarah presenting this poem, and after I watched it the tone and atmosphere I got was friendly. The speaker’s tone was friendly, and when she spoke her poem, she was very convincing. It was almost as if she wanted you to visually picture what she was saying, and she wanted you to fully understand her perspective on hands. The speaker shows us that the significance of hands is that we learn and explore people through looking and feeling ones hands, and as she says in the poem, they’re the “compasses” of our lives.

Through this poem I have found a new respect for hands. I can now relate to what people feel and mean when they say they can tell the pain and experience through someone’s eyes. We may say that a person’s eyes shows us the past of someone, however it is the art of hands that shows us the depth, and clarity of one’s experience.

Manipulation leads us to consider whether an individual’s intentions are genuine, or are intended to make someone fall. This idea stems from the superior vs weak relationship. The “superior” beings feel a sense of authority over others, and they do not want people to imagine outside of the box. They want them to be discouraged, and always be in their safe zone because once they envision out of what they’re told, they develop independence, and become aware of all things. In the film, The Truman Show, the underlying foundation is manipulation. Every second of Truman’s life is televised and planned. No spontaneity. No unpredictability. We see Truman go through life with everything being predictable, and every single element being perfect. However, in reality, Truman has been manipulated his whole life and has been considered like a child his whole life. Everything is given to him, and he does not face the proper cruelness that life delivers us. In the film The Truman Show, the director Peter Weir explores the idea of manipulation and how it is created by self-centered intentions through control, a sense of reality, and awareness.

Initially, Truman was fully oblivious of the containment he was under, and believed that everything around him was a “conventional” life. Halfway through the film, we start to see flashbacks of Truman when he was younger, and we see that he always wanted to explore the world, but something would always prevent him. Truman started to accept that remaining in SeaHaven was what his future held, and that he would never achieve leaving SeaHaven. This illustrates that authority was essential to the producers/writers of the show, and they would take on extreme measures just to insure Truman does not recognize anything out of the norm. This indicates that Truman has been considered as a youngster his whole life, and that he never acquired his own independence. It may be viewed that Truman got to form his own decisions, however he was never given a choice, and it always frustrated him because he wanted to have the ability to make decisions and choose the end result of his life. The need of having control implies that the intentions of the producers are not innocent, and they want to gain money from this show, which indicates that their desires are self-absorbed. Furthermore, Truman has always been blind of his surroundings, however the one time he actually gets a sense of something honest, it is seized away from him.

Then, the time comes where Truman gets a taste of reality. A taste of something that’s true and real, therefore it is quickly snatched away from him by none other than the producers/writers of the show. Throughout the film, we see flashbacks of Truman’s life when he was in High School, and we see that Truman actually loved someone other than Meryl. In the film, we see that the producers try to distract Truman by always having Meryl around, however when Sylvia makes her first appearance on the show, it’s love at first sight. One day, Truman asks Sylvia if she wants to hang out, and she replies, “I’m not allowed to talk to you.” Truman continuously persists, and finally Sylvia agrees, and says, “Now.” We see them leave, and we notice that the cameras can’t find them anywhere. Finally, the cameras catch Sylvia and Truman at the beach, and Sylvia struggles between the differencing of telling Truman the truth or to continue playing her part. As Sylvia starts to gain confidence, a car comes out of nowhere and a man who claims as being Sylvia’s “father” gets out, and takes her away.  The story of Sylvia and Truman has always been different because we see how Truman reacts to something that is actual and true. There was never a moment between Sylvia and Truman that was planned, and this shows us that the producers/writers of the show never honored Sylvia from the beginning. Sylvia made Truman believe that there is a life out of SeaHaven, and that Truman can succeed that dream of his. This illustrates why the producers of the show wrote Sylvia off because she never discouraged Truman, and in their egotistical intention minds that was considered wrong because Truman was never allowed anything real. Their relationship suggests why Truman started to question his life and the realness of his “life” after he met Sylvia. Continuing on, Sylvia opened Truman’s eyes to see the world he was living in, and that made Truman get a grasp of whether his life was real or not.

Finally, Truman starts to become aware of the manipulation, and tries to break free from the control he’s been under for the past 30 years. During the end of the film, Truman disappears from SeaHaven, and he is nowhere to be found. All the producers are going berserk, and when they do finally find Truman they try to stop him from leaving SeaHaven by creating an artificial water storm. Truman endures through the storm, and as he is about to leave SeaHaven, Christof starts to speak to Truman, and tries to emotionally manipulate him. As Truman is contemplating whether he should exist SeaHaven or not, Christof says, “There’s no more truth out there… You can’t leave Truman.” The act of Truman disappearing from SeaHaven demonstrates that Truman actually manipulated the producers, and gave them a kick of the manipulation they have been feeding Truman for the past 30 years.  This indicates that the intentions of these producers have changed from wanting to give Truman the “perfect” life, to wanting just the money, but still carrying out the control over Truman. This shows us that one can never manipulate another and have good intentions in doing so. Christof’s actions illustrates that he has made Truman into a naive child because of the amount of emotional trauma Christof has put Truman through, and has brought Truman up in a world of lies when Christof’s one goal was to keep Truman away from that deceiving world. Christof has done no good to Truman, in any case he has actually emotionally and mentally unstabilized him, and that’s worse than letting him out into the real world.

The idea of manipulation stems from the roots of self-centered intentions, and are practiced upon naive individuals. The act of controlling, realism, and awareness all tie into the creation of manipulation, which is self-absorbed intentions. Truman has been living on lies his whole life, while Christof thought that he was actually helping Truman, however, he has given Truman a sheltered version of life, and has helped him in no way. The director of this movie, Peter Weir, was trying to explain how manipulation can never be done with good intentions. You may think that you are manipulating someone with great intentions, however after a period of time you have all this domination over another person’s life and you suddenly don’t know how to stop. Manipulation is a mind game that superior individuals use to make regular people turn innocent and naive, and are consecutively discouraged to break the strings of conventional views.

Hardworking. Admirable. Adorable. 3 simple words, yet they have such depth and such resemblance to the kind of character my dad has. He is a shining example of how love makes you do the craziest things, such as sacrificing what you want to do, in order for your children to have a good life. My dad was studying to become a doctor when he married my mom, and he often tells me how much procrastination he had done during medical school. Now you may think, how could your father who procrastinated his way through medical school be your role model? It’s actually a very simple answer-Love. The amount of love and sacrifice he’s done for our family surprises me every day.

Let’s take it back to 1992 when my parents got married. My mom was just 18 years old when she got married, and she moved to Denmark, where my dad was currently residing. Imagine being an 18 year old and moving halfway across the world without your parents. At first, it was very hard for my mom to adjust to this new environment, but as time went on she learned to enjoy it.  My dad was born in Pakistan, but came out to Denmark at the age of 14. Once my dad graduated from high school he had no clue about what career he wanted to go into. My dad is a very laid back person, who doesn’t stress about anything and just goes with the flow. When my dad first came over to Denmark, life was hard for his family. They were living paycheck by paycheck, and my dad being the eldest child had a lot of responsibilities. This was a major factor that contributed to my dad going into the medical field. My grandfather (dad’s dad), made my dad go into medical because 1. They needed a steady income in the household 2. My grandfather wanted a good life for not only himself, but also for all of his children. In Pakistan, my dad’s family wasn’t very well off, and I feel like my grandfather’s intention once he came to Denmark was to make sure his children went into fields where income was very high, so they could provide for their families.

Time went on, and before you know it, it’s November of 1998. 6 years since my parents got married, and 6 years of my mom convincing my dad to move back to Canada. Her wish finally came true that year, and so we were off to Canada. However, Canada had different plans for my dad, and they wouldn’t allow him to him to work here because he got his education from Denmark. This was the beginning of my dad consecutively travelling back and forth from Calgary to Scandinavia.

15 years later and we’re still in the exact same situation. Although, the situation/circumstance has become a norm in my life, my heart still breaks whenever I have to say goodbye to my dad. This situation that I call my life is why my dad is my inspiration. I’ve never seen any individual in my life who has such an enormous amount of love for their family. I know that my dad loves being a doctor, but I also know that he doesn’t want to always be on call 24/7, and he does it because he wants his kids to have a good life.

I may be bias, but my dad is the BEST one out there. He may not be there for my birthdays, but the amount of love I receive from him makes missing birthdays acceptable. I hope one day to find that amount of love for my own family, and be willing to sacrifice everything for my family.

Humble. Selfless. Loveable. 3 words that sum up what my dad has shown/taught me ever since I was a kid.

I Love you Dad.