This is my workspace for today, and all while visiting treasured friends in Zug, Switzerland. I am now working parallel on my 4th and 5th draft. Lots of revision to be done. I am still amazed by how crap my 3rd draft was…
My lecturers at the art academy taught me well many years ago: Don’t be satisfied with your work too quickly. Even if it seems to be good enough – revise, revise, revise. But then of course, you need to know when to stop so you don’t overshoot the mark. Happy Sunday everyone. Sending you sunshine from gorgeous Zug!

This picture was taken only days after I came out at my workplace and announced, “I am actually a man and would like to be called Liam from now on.” Everyone embraced who I was. My employer gracefully ignored my big boobs and sent me to the tailor to get my very first tailor-made suit. All thumbs, I never managed to tie my own ties. But, thanks to the lovely ladies at the ticket office who helped me every day, I was just a short step away from looking as dashing as James Bond.

This is my oma (German for grandma) with her best friend. Oma left us on 26th December 1996. Today, she would have turned 105 years old. Whatever happens, she will always live on in my memories – and in all of yours, I hope.
My book will be dedicated to her. Everything you will read will be in large part thanks to Frida Klenk – my amazing, irreplaceable oma. Throughout my youth she was always there for me, lifting me up with her gracious heart, her strength, her smile and her undefeatable optimism. Happy birthday Oma! Thanks for helping me grow into the positive force I am today. I am sending you the biggest hug imaginable. I love you.

For a while, I was male in body but still female on paper. If I had to apply for any kind of official documents, people would usually look at me and say, “Why don’t you send your wife?” I would turn red like a tomato, stammer, and would hate every second of our exchange.

A few days ago, I needed to make some phone calls to order divorce papers from years back. So my conversation with the friendly registrar on the phone went like this…
Me: “Hello, can you please send me a copy of my divorce papers from 2004?”
Registrar: “Sure. May I ask, who was your wife at the time?”
Me: “I was.”
Silence…
Registrar: “I am sorry, I don’t get it.”
Me, laughing: “I am sorry for confusing you. I had a sex change but back then, I was Mrs. William. I was the wife.”
Registrar:”Oh, I am sorry.”
Me: “Don’t worry about it. So now I am a man. But can you still send me those papers as they were then, listing me as female?”
Registrar: “I am still a bit confused, but yes, I will get right on it.”
Me, chuckling: “Thanks a lot. Have a great day!”
Registrar: “Thanks Mr. Klenk, you too.”
She had sounded so honestly puzzled and been so sweet about it, I couldn’t stop giggling for a good half hour.

And then it occurred to me: I don’t mind anymore. The process of writing my memoirs and reliving so many incredible experiences must have helped as well. I feel completely relaxed and unconcerned. I am at ease with who I am. Yes, I am transsexual. Yes, I do not fit the norm. Yes, I have had a crazy odyssey so far. Some of it was incredibly hard to deal with and survive…

Thank you universe, for every single second of this precious life. It has made me who I am. Thank you with all my heart.

Surrounded by turquoise oceans teeming with life, I often pondered one of my favorite quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien, “Not all those who wander are lost.” I had sometimes been lost before I had wandered. Ever since I had started exploring the world and myself in the process, I was definitely far from lost.

Adolescence was difficult to say the least. I tried to fit in. But I wasn’t girl enough to be able to connect with other girls and I wasn’t boy enough to be accepted by other boys. So I decided early on to try and find virtue in being a loner. I immersed myself in books, wrote poems and short stories, pondered about Schopenhauer and Kant, and ordered books from Native American reservations, at one time even learning a Lakota dialect. My favorite pastime on weekends was helping frogs across the street or rescuing falcons from Arab sheiks. I was lonely as hell, friendly, smiling.
Kill them with kindness, I thought. Be yourself. Eventually, you will find your way and they will accept you. In these early days, it never occurred to me that I was already well on my way, just many years away from understanding an important truth: being me is enough.

As an adolescent, I was convinced that everything is important. Every move I made, every decision I pondered, every breath I took had to count for something and be a positive or at least a very profound statement. Naturally, I also expected the same from everyone else. Looking back, I can’t help but chuckle and feel slightly sorry for all of those whose path I have crossed. I am sure, I wasn’t horrible to be with, but my expectations were so high, they could never be reached.

Maybe my quest was so intense because, in the first twenty years of my life, nothing seemed to work out. My body wasn’t what it was supposed to be. Life had a way of throwing challenges at me faster than I could blink. Giving up wasn’t an option so I analyzed and anticipated each twist and turn in my life like a general, ready to dispatch his troops but needing to find out where to send them, for best results. I was on constant alert, trying to spot problems and conflicts before they arose, so I could take preventive measures and come out victorious.

I still take things way too seriously. I still care. Most likely, I still care way too much about everything, but I have also learned to sit back and relax. I have learned to laugh about myself. I am smiling right now, chuckling about how important it seems to compose these three little paragraphs. And yet, I am happy to write them and would want to do nothing else at this moment. I am smiling about my use of the word “victorious”. I can do my very best, and I will continue to do so, but who knows what will happen. And what’s a victory anyway? It’s a big planet, a gigantic universe, an unpredictable, beautiful life. I trust more now. I trust those around me. Most of all, I trust myself to be able to deal with whatever may come. Sometimes not accomplishing something is exactly what we need, even if it breaks our heart. Sometimes, losing something proves to be the best thing that could ever have happened to us. I don’t worry about failure anymore. If I have my heart in the right place, then nothing will be a failure. It will all be part of my odyssey, every experience to be treasured.

This little dust speck is waving to the universe, happy to be a part of it for a little while.

Home is all about the people you meet on your journey. It’s the quintessential meaning of life.
Additionally to relationships and friendships lasting a lifetime, I am humbled and awed by many encounters along my way.
I remember a friend from Bangladesh who still works on the same island in the Maldives he has worked on for the last twenty-five years. Like many, he is far away from his home and family, allowed only one vacation per year. After all this time, he is still living in staff quarters with more than twenty men to one room. He has one of the kindest souls I have ever known.
I remember meeting new workers from Bangladesh on their way to the Maldives, terrified on the flight, breaking the bathroom doors on the airplane because they couldn’t read pictures or symbols to figure out how to open these doors they had never seen before. Lining up at immigration, they held on to each other for dear life.
Or I remember an eighty-year old man in Macau, working in a parking garage, who stopped me every time to ask if I could teach him a bit of English. One time he pointed to a dirty shopping bag and looked at me with curious, smiling eyes, wanting me to teach him the slogan printed on the bag: “I am a plastic bag, treat me responsibly!”
I remember so many encounters in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa, the humblest people often teaching me the greatest lessons, reminding me how precious life is and how little we truly need, to live a good life and make a difference.