Liam Klenk's Blog, page 40

Be Brave

After I had an epiphany and understood fully “ I am transgender”, there was only one way: forward. Continuing in the wrong body was never an option.

I was scared but determined.

Then, I began telling people about my situation:

“I’m actually a man stuck in a female body. I’ve started hormone therapy, so you’ll see my body change over the next few months. And, from now on, can you please call me Liam instead of Stefanie?”

Each time I addressed one of my family, friends, and work mates, the reactions were very similar.

“Ah, I’ve always wondered if you weren’t in fact a boy,” my dad said.

“I’m not surprised. It’s kind of obvious,” my boss said.

“Liam? How on earth do I pronounce that? Couldn’t you have found something easier?” the work mate I believed to be the most conservative asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“I’ve always known,” my professor at the Art Academy said, accompanying his statement with a strong, friendly pat on the shoulder that almost knocked me over.

The list of positive encounters continues indefinitely.

Fact is, those who love us and care about us, often know long before we ourselves know or are ready to “come out”. They know in their hearts.

During our lifetime there are many opportunities to come out and stand up for who we are and what we believe in – be it to let the world know about our LGBT identity, a political belief, or a philosophical standpoint.

Others might already know us well enough so maybe it needn’t be said at all, but we need to hear the words out loud, need to feel and savour those letters rolling around our tongue like a well-preserved bottle of red wine.

We need to proclaim for ourselves and the world, “This I me. This is who I choose to be. This is who I am born to be. I accept and love myself just as I am.”

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Changed Forever

Ten years ago to date I left my home in Zurich and moved to turquoise heaven: Kuredu, a tiny island in the mesmerisingly beautiful Lhaviyani Atoll and its surrounding Indian Ocean.

Here I am, the little guy on the right, with the other two members of our Kuredu snorkel guide team in 2005. And what a team we were. An adventurous, easy going Australian, a high-strung, energetic Brit and a romantic, idealistic German in search of his true home. Kuredu was just the first of many intense experiences involving the sharing of limited living and working space with people from all over the world.

The good times I had, the bad times, the lessons I learned, the walls I banged my head against, the broad variety of people I met and learned to not just live with but also appreciate… none of that would have happened had I just stayed where I was already comfortable.

My world is bigger now and, thankfully, I am changed forever.

My book and I are now on Goodreads!

My book “Paralian” is now listed on Goodreads (publication date will be 28th of May, 2016) and I have my very own author page. Come check it out and if you are on Goodreads, why not add me as a friend there :).

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14425961.Liam_Klenk

Here we go…

Nervous and excited, like a dad letting his kid go through the schoolyard gate on the first day of school, I just emailed my signed contract to my publisher in the UK.

Beautifully timed, a former professor of mine finished reading my manuscript and told me last night that he loved the book and couldn’t put it down. He called it a universal story about life and finding yourself.

It is… and, here we go… the adventure continues!

A Pivotal Moment

As a child, I never quite fit in. Reading opened up the world for me and books became my most treasured sanctuary. Writing was a natural progression and became a passion. I dabbled in short stories and poems. Then, during my high school years, I signed up for the odd writing contest.

In 1988, I won first price in a state-wide competition. I conducted a survey in my town and wrote a hundred-page study on how our school system could be re-vamped. As a result, I was invited to the parliament of Baden-Wuerttemberg along with about two dozen other teenagers and was asked to share my findings and give a speech to my fellow students. Stepping up like this in front of people was a pivotal moment in my young life, even though most of my adolescent contemporaries would rather have been someplace else judging by their slightly bored facial expressions. I wasn’t fazed and wasn’t by far as nervous as I had expected to be. Towards the end of my speech, part of my audience even looked a bit more awake.

Now, 27 years later, I find myself smiling at this memory and at my unshakeable optimism and curiosity that have stayed with me my entire life.

Hops, Leaps, and Life

When my mom and I met for the first time, she was already shaped by a life that hadn’t been kind to her. Born in Germany in 1941, she began experiencing life amidst the terrifying thunder of falling bombs. Her father went missing in Stalingrad and her mother was torn apart by never learning the fate of her husband.

After the bomb shelters, my mom grew up in the ruins, stricken by fear and insecurity. Twenty years later, as a beautiful young woman with dreams of building her own family, she discovered she could’t have children of her own. In 1971, her husband and her found me at the local orphanage. They knew instantly: I was the one. I would be their beloved daughter.

When I later turned out to be a little boy, trapped in a girl’s body, my mom struggled, her dreams of braiding my hair, buying me dirndls, and giving me make-up-advice evaporating one by one…

I used to get angry at her for not understanding me, not accepting me the way I am. Now I know that I didn’t quite understand her either. She tries, every day, as much as she is able to. She fights her neuroses, paranoia and deeply ingrained insecurity. Concerning me, her adopted son, she still gets her adjectives mixed up and feels incapable of introducing me to her friends… but she loves me.

Sometimes people’s shadows are just too large, and jumping over them in one giant leap proves to be too much of an acrobatic feat to accomplish. Maybe in this case they need to bridge the darkness one tiny little hop at a time. And that’s ok. Kindness and understanding are so important. For all of us.

Double Dip and Double Up

My very first book… curious fact is that the process of writing it has been just as much of an odyssey than my life story up until now. New, intense experiences shaped the writing process every step of the way, while an amazing number of people supported my efforts.

During the fourteen months of writing, re-writing and editing my manuscript multiple times, I asked myself often, “When do you stop? When is it good enough?” Just as in any artistic process, it will never be perfect, but after the 8th draft, I trusted my instincts – I clearly felt it and whispered to myself, “This is it Liam. This is as authentic and well-written as it’ll ever get.”

Then came the search for the perfect title – which felt almost harder than writing the entire book.

Present challenge is finding a subtitle that is just right. The cover design will come next…

Last but not least, after almost a year of looking for a publisher, I am now very close to making a final decision and beginning with the publishing process. And, guess what: surprisingly and very unexpectedly, the hardest part so far seems to be letting go of my creation, moving it from the safe confines of my laptop out there into the production- and then bookstore-universe. Like a child experiencing a roller coaster ride for the very first time, I am exhilarated and scared out of my wits all at the same time. Half of my body and mind can’t wait to get into that car, while the other half is wondering if it mightn’t be better to hold out just a little while longer…

Anything can happen. Maybe no one will be interested and I’ll crash. Maybe only a few will ever have a look and it’ll be a very unsatisfying, bumbling ride. Or, maybe more people will be interested than I could ever imagine and I’ll hold on for dear life, screaming all the way to the finish line.

Whatever happens, I hope my book will be one of those rare pieces of literature that will stay in people’s hearts and minds for a very long time.

So here we go… stepping into the car, sitting down, buckling up (or not), looking at the many double dips, double ups, drops, rolls and loops before me and… settling in for the ride – whatever it may be.

Vibrations

Truly Magical Moments. I am not even a techno fan… and I don’t like crowds… but I absolutely love the intensity of Zurich’s annual Streetparade.

People of all ages and nationalities are dancing and letting go together. Even 80-year old couples are joining into the party. Old ladies are wearing Hawaiian Leis, their eyes lighting up at seeing their historical city transformed into something not quite from this Earth. For just one day, it becomes an ocean of myriad colors, of glowing bodies vibrating with energy and happiness.

I am feeling intensely alive and so happy that I want to simultaneously holler, cry, yodel, and hop up and down like an over-caffeinated kangaroo. Life is meant to be lived.

Zugspitze

When I was sixteen, my dad brought me along for a trip to Berchtesgaden with his lover. During one of our days there, they wanted to have some time to themselves. I welcomed having a day to explore on my own and decided to hike all the way to the top of Zugspitze. I didn’t know the first thing about hiking, pacing myself, proper shoes… and it never occurred to me to research beforehand how long the hike would take.

Late morning, I set off at a brisk pace, inevitably finding myself completely winded after a little less than an hour. Even worse, I was wearing new hiking boots and my feet were hurting as if they were being squeezed in a medieval torturing device. I could feel tenacity rising within me while I caught my breath. Nope, turning around was definitely not an option.

So I pushed on at the same rigorous pace. Half an hour later I felt myself unable to take another step. My lungs were burning and my feet felt as if I had stepped on multiple razor blades. I sat down on a bench and gingerly took off my socks. They seemed to have merged with my feet. Both feet were covered in blisters. Most of those had already been rubbed raw and blood was everywhere.

All the hikers I had overtaken on my way up so far, began catching up with me and gave me odd glances. Thankfully one of them stopped and, in a very practical approach, handed me some disinfectant wipes and plasters.

“You really need to slow down kid.” he said. “Get yourself patched up and then walk slowly enough so you can go the distance. From here it’s at least another four hours to the top.”

So I improvised my first ever field-dressing, gritted my teeth, and went on… step by step, by little slow-paced step.

I reached the summit about five hours later, handed my little Kodak Instamatic to another fellow hiker, and posed for this shot. Absorbing the magnificent landscape all around me with every fibre of my being I knew it had all been worth it. This was a sight and a feeling of sweet exhaustion and accomplishment to remember.

Dad

As a child I adored my dad. Come adolescence, he began to seem old to me, a stranger, far removed from my own world. In my eyes he was unable to truly comprehend what happened in my life.

Many years later, when I turned forty, I noticed with astonishment that deep inside I hadn’t changed much from the teenager who had always been so full of positive energy, hopes and dreams.

And I wondered.. had my father always remained a young man inside as well? His character and emotional predispositions might be quite different from mine, but we could have more in common than I ever thought possible.

As small as this epiphany seems, it went a long way in helping me to understand my dad better. He still triggers tidal waves of emotions in me but, our worlds have moved closer together. Instead of being offended at how different our planets are, we have finally arrived — if not on the same star, than at least only a few light years apart instead of thousands.

Writing my book has done wonders as I re-experienced so many key events involving Dad. As I dove deep into my own story, I remembered him vividly and he came alive within me: his warm smile, his calm loyalty, his limitless generosity, his boyish behavior, his tears, the trauma of his marriage, his love affairs, his struggle with depression, his breakfast tomatoes, his passion for swimming, and his kindness in giving me my first razor and a bottle of Cool Water at the start of my hormone therapy, long before I had my gender reassignment surgery.

Now, moving back to within an hours drive of my dad is another huge geographical as well as emotional step towards each other. We meet and we talk. And even if sometimes I still get impatient, I am profoundly happy to have him in my life.