INTRODUCTION
Okay, this is gonna sound like a weird place to start, but i think a lot about my hands.I was born left-handed. My dad is also a lefty, but he`s absolutely convinced that I`m right-handed.I think it´s because he has always said lefties have to ``learn the world backwards,´´ and I know he has had a hard time finding a left-handed guitar every now and then....
whatever the reason, from the time I started to write, he had me use my right hand. It worked. In the rest of my life I´m left-handed, but I do write with my right hand. So if you don´t like my handwritting-talk to my dad.
just to mess with my left-handed self a little more, I came across a book about calligraphy and started teaching myself to write Chinese characters. With my right hand. On a plane. I was flying a charterednjet from Los Angeles to New York. The fligt was turbulent, the ink spilled at least twice, and I managed to get it all over myself, the paper, the seats of the plane, and, When I tried to clean up the mess, the bathroom. My mom was yelling at me fir getting ink everywhere, but I was really into it.
The world calligraphy is Greek for ´´beatiful writting.´´ Believe me, people, if the Greeks saw what I was doing they`d make up a new word for it. But I was immediately obsseded. I drew the characters for ``love,´´ ``luck,´´ and ``knowledge´´ over and over again, first slowly and carefully like a kindergartner learning to write, then faster and better.
LOVE
It is a good thing the plane was not equipped for skywritting, our I probably would have tried to convince the pilot to take a stab a the sign for ``Rock on.´´
There is got to be an ancient Chinese character for thet, right?
7 hobbies I obsessed
over for 5 seconds
1. calligraphy
2.beading
3.knitting for two seconds
4.scrapbooking
5.reading the life storu of Einstein
6.being a marine biologist
7.high fashion
Some people believe that your handwritting tells all your secrets-that the slants and loops and dots of a scribbled to-do list or a note passed in class reveal all there is to know about a person. It is a cool idea, but really I think the only thing anyone can tell about me from my handwritting is that I am supossed to be writting with my other hand. I do almost everything else-brush my hair, open doors, hold a firk, and you know, my dad had a point-I do think the world feels a little bit backwars some-times even when I am trying to keep everything going in the right direction,
Maybe because I have felt so aware of them, I have always been superprotective of my hands, I know, I know: weird*. But I just feel as though my hands are important. My energy comes from them. Everything I do comes from them.
My right hand is for art. I use it to play guitar and to write. My left hand is for caring. For combing my little sister is hair. For holding hands with friends.
For comforting Sofie, my puppy,as we fall asleep.
(And occasionally for slapping my brother Braison upside the head when he is picking on me, I know-but everybody has their limits!)
*you might be reading this word a lot in this book. or at least thinking it.
I left both my hands wander freely on a piano, searching for the right notes. My hands steer my thoughts when I write in mu journal. They riffle through my Bible, finding truths. The beat for a new song emerges as I drum on a tabletop. I fell my way through hard times. I want all I do to be artistic and loving, Who I am and what I say and whatever hope and joy I may spread-it all comes from my own two hands.
Am I right-handed? Am I left-handed? Am I neither? Am I a singer, or an actor? Am I a public person, or am i a private person? why can not I be all these things? I am on TV. I am writting a book. But I also love staying at home with my family. And I feel alone-in a good way-inside my head. Am I the person you know from television, photographs, even this book? Or are we all, each of us, more eclusive, and harder to define? who am I to say?
most people know me as Hannah Montana, but Hannah is a television character. She is fiction. Sure, I have put a lot of myself into her. I have tried to make her come to life. But that do not make her real, and it do not make her me. This is my very own book-my first chance to tell my own story in my own words, but to tell my story, I have to talk about Hannah, and that is okay, because I think that is why people relate to both Hannah Montana and Miley Stewart-my alter egos on TV. There are multiple sides to all of us. Who we are-and who we might be if we follow our dreams
It seems like i am always answering questions about myself: I do interviews on TV, radio, and for magazines; I talk to paparazzi and strangers on the street. Overand over I tell people (and so far it is always true) that the tour is going so great, the show is so much fun, and i am so proud of my album, but nobodyever comes up to me and asks, hey, how do your fell about your hands? How are they connected to your art? What do they mean to you? ``This book is the place where I can explain and joke and muse and explore what is truly important to me. I want to let my guard down. I want to talk about what music means to me and I want to show that my life is not all sunshineand rainbows. It is not like I have never been hurt or broken.I have felt pressured, unwanted,sad, bored, and lonely. Who I really am-not the straight-edged, photo-shopped, glossy girl who appears on magazine convers, but a Nashville-born middle child who loves Marilyn Monroe and hates vegetables and has always had some rather funny ideas about her own hands.
When I started working in this book I was fifteen, and I turned sixteen by the time I finished it. I am pretty young to be writting about my life. But I am considered pretty young for plenty of the things I do and enjoy, There is nothing wrong with being young. Young people have lots of energy! We have lots to say, I have never had a shortage of thoughts, ideas, or opinions. I know I am still near the beginning of my life. I am having an incredible journey, and it is going superfast. So I want to plant a mile marker right here-at this paarticular bend in the road-before its image starts to fade as I keep moving forward. I hope you can kick back and ( enjoy the ride*) hang out with me for a while.
* forget the
cheesy
driving
metaphor
ºº LOVE
