Ha! Got to post what my publisher just tweeted. First time ever I get to share a meaningful picture quote by……… myself. And in case you’re wondering, I’m chuckling happily while I’m hitting “enter”.
1st Quote
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Tag Archives: #inspiration
Nothing Held Back
How I loved this job! Coaching performers, keeping them safe during the show, being a stage hand and stage manager underwater in one of the most visionary projects of all time. The best times were when I could prepare performers for their aquatic environment. I loved seeing them work during our training sessions. Their focus, dedication and support for each other were second to none.
My four years of being part of the “The House of Dancing Water” show family in Macau were life lived to the fullest. All in. Nothing held back. Steep learning curves. It was heaven and hell, Jekyll and Hyde, utter happiness and despair. I looked into the abyss and at the same time was mesmerised by the beauty, passion, and creativity all around me. Blood and tears, utter commitment, corporate politics, friendship, integrity, growth, dreams coming true (sometimes shattered), an abundance of hugs and kisses, standing ovations, and the overall emotional intensity of an earthquake magnitude 8 on the Richter Scale.
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An Homage to Books, Cats, and Matt Haig
For as long as I can remember I’ve devoured books of almost all genres. I still easily read three a week, taking every chance I get to immerse myself in someone else’s thoughts and imagination.
Recently, through writing my own first book ‘Paralian’ I’ve redoubled my efforts and have even caught myself reading whilst walking home from the bus stop. If it’s a good read, something resounding deeply within, I seem to be incapable to set those precious pages aside – and be it just for a few minutes. Even more so, I love those days when I can do nothing else but wiggle into the large cushions of our comfy couch, book in hand, Nacho and Pushka, our fluffy fur balls, purring on either side of me.
One writer who has managed to charm me more than most is Matt Haig. I love his fine sense of humour, his compassion, and sensitive celebration of life. In all he has been through I recognise a kindred spirit. Living through tremendous pain and struggle heightens our sense of how magical and meaningful our brief, meaningless existence really is. Storytelling in all forms and shapes, listening to others’ and sharing our own, being an essential part of this magic…
“I loved external narratives for the hope they offered. Films. TV dramas. And most of all, books. They were, in and of themselves, reasons to stay alive. Every book written is the product of a human mind in a particular state. Add all the books together and you get the end sum of humanity. Every time I read a great book I felt I was reading a kind of map, a treasure map, and the treasure I was being directed to was in actual fact myself. But each map was incomplete, and I would only locate the treasure if I read all the books, and so the process of finding my best self was an endless quest…”
(From Matt Haig’s new book ‘Reasons To Stay Alive’)
How beautiful, and how profoundly true. Thinking ahead to the months and years to come, I dream my books will add to the magic. ‘Paralian’ is a beginning. I hope it carries the inner strength to, at some point in time, be a treasure map for someone out there as well…
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The Legacy of Adoption
A press release from Literally PR concerning my memoirs ‘Paralian’ (launching soon!). This release focussing on the adoption side of things…
![[image]](http://collateral.prmax.co.uk/collateral/92316.jpg "66749-1.jpg")
Press Release:
The Legacy of Adoption
Paralian: Not Just Transgender
London, United Kingdom, Thursday 14thJanuary 2016: Liam Klenk’s innovative memoir, Paralian, will initially strike most as a transgender man’s story despite the title strapline ‘notjusttransgender’. In reality, there are many elements within Liam’s life that are equally as defining as being a transgender man. Just as important to his identity in 2016 was the late revelation, in 1992, that he had been adopted at just five months.
Conventional wisdom suggests that adopted children should be made aware of their biological parents as soon as possible but Liam did not find out he was adopted until the age of 21, and then it was because of legal papers associated with a rather complicated marriage and divorce. He explains in his memoir, due for release by Matador on May 28th 2016:
In Zurich once again…
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Island Life
http://www.banffcentre.org/centrepiece/2013/02/living-on-this-island-we-call-banff/
In 2013, I spent a few weeks enjoying a theatre management internship at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. Those were magical weeks in which I learned about team work and creativity on a different kind of island – one surrounded by mountain ranges instead of a deep blue sea. Here is an article about me that has just been re-published by Maximum Banff Daily.
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Traveling in Time
I spent four days in Budapest last week. It’s a beautiful old town with breath-taking historical buildings and a romantic river, meandering through the heart of the city. As I soaked in the sights and smells all around me, I found myself traveling to places I had never expected.
The steaming hot lentil stew and sausage from a humble restaurant around the corner transported me into my grandma’s living room. I remembered how I would explore the depths of an iron pot with my fork to find the hidden sausage pieces, leaving only lentils for everyone else. It seemed like yesterday when Grandma would shake her head and, with a big, exasperated smile say, “Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay”; then continue to let me fish for sausage pieces because she loved me too much to be concerned with trifles.
The rich, suddenly familiar aroma of gigantic bread loafs in Hungarian bakeries reminded me of how I had once come back from summer camp with a recipe for organic bread. I had run to my grandma and asked her to help me bake it. Grandma sacrificed a big lump of her pension money for the expensive ingredients. She then dedicated an entire afternoon to our endeavor, enduring my impatience with the baking process in Zen-like serenity. Self-absorbed, with true teenage obliviousness, I behaved horribly and shouted at her when the bread didn’t turn out the way I had expected.
Throughout my stay in Budapest, bitter-sweet memories flooded me. I watched the calmly flowing Danube River and wished I could jump on a float and be transported upstream towards a past horizon, into the arms of Grandma. One more, long hug, enveloping her like a warm, soft but firm cashmere blanket, letting her know from my adult self just how deeply grateful I was and always will be for her unconditional love.
Traveling is never just a search for new horizons. Inevitably, our sensory impressions along the way trigger memories and, while past and present merge in our minds, our sensual experiences become the true landmarks.
#Paralian #LiamKlenk #lifejourney #memoirs #notjusttrans #lifeisbeautiful #nevergiveup #love #family
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Transgender Day of Remembrance
If you have a moment, take a look at this list of transgender individuals who have been murdered so far in 2015.
How can this gruesome list still be so long in our day and age? I am not much of a politician, and never will be, but I hope with all my heart to be able to make a difference in the years to come. As a human being, a fellow transgender individual, and as someone who loves life and the diversity on our planet with all his heart.
#Paralian #notjusttrans #nevergiveup #goforward
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It runs in the family
Under Pressure
Here I am, working as a hyperbaric chamber operator in the Maldives. Running the chamber from the outside was great. I loved being able to help and make a real difference.
Tending to the patient on the inside, however, wasn’t so groovy. Being stuck together in a space smaller than a broom closet for up to six hours, both of us drinking water to avoid further decompression illness, my bladder felt like a volcano close to eruption. There was no privacy. The only way to relieve ourselves was to do it right in front of each other.
I got more desperate with every minute but never peed in the chamber. Considering the struggling patient was already scared to death, worried to end up paralysed for the rest of his life, and counting on me to literally hold his hand throughout the ordeal, taking off my pants in front of him, revealing that I don’t have a penis, felt like a horribly unprofessional move to make.
Over the years of working on Kuredu, I went into that chamber as a tender several times. Call me stupid or stubborn. I just couldn’t give in and in the end it all came down to will power. I didn’t want to be a liability, didn’t want to ask my boss for special treatment. I promised myself I’d make it work and keep my cool in there. And I did. Every time. While gritting my teeth, every muscle in my bladder screaming for rescue, I made sure to follow all protocols and looked after my patients during every minute of our pressure ride in the rumbling tin can.
#Paralian #LiamKlenk #LGBT #notjustrans #transgender #lifejourney #odyssey #publishingsoon #book #nevergiveup
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1st press coverage for ‘Paralian’
We’ve taken a major leap forward: 1st press coverage ever for my book ‘Paralian’ in one of Britains largest free newspapers ‘Metro’. Click on the link below to access the huge article journalist Deni Kirkova wrote about my story.
How I escaped the prison of my female form: One man’s journey to finding his true identity
Liam Klenk 