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Klima vs. Wirtschaftskrise

bloggerin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:30:45 +0000

Einer, der etwas mehr Überblick oder Abstand zur Emotionalität hat, reibt sich da doch öfters die Augen: Nachdem die Kosten der Klimaveränderung hochgerechnet und nur deshalb von den scheuklappenblinden Politiker (und nicht nur von denen) endlich wahrgenommen wurden, war es bis vor den höchst kurzweiligen Effekt der Economy-Krise allen klar, dass ein Weitermachen in demselben Stil die Schäden an der Umwelt so hoch treiben würde, dass sie jede Volkswirtschaft an die Wand fahren werden. Dann aber endgültiger.

Im TV sagten sie über irgendeinen Konsumentenindex in Deutschland, dass der nach oben zeige, die Leute konsumieren wie üblich, wenn nicht gar mehr. Klar, denn das Gedöns um die Wirtschaft … in Europa kann noch jeder sein Brot kaufen. Und wenn die Rezession kommt, die Güter sind ja noch immer da, keine Naturkatastrophe hat Getreide, Gemüse, Wasser ruiniert, werde für nur eine Saison noch wenige Jahre. NICHTS ist passiert. Und dennoch konnte dieses Nichts die Staaten zum Herausrücken von Milliarden veranlassen.

Wie irrational. Wenn in 100 Jahren Holland unter Wasser liegt, in Zentraleuropa vielleicht im Sommer 40 Grad herrschen, keine Regenfälle mehr, im Winter Wasser und Stürme den Humus in gewaltigen Wetterausschlägen wegwaschen, in der Schweiz all die Bergkäffer regelmässig von Schlammlavinen geschliffen werden, dann wird das die Banken und den Staat gigantisch viel kosten, und zwar an realen Werten. Werten, die ja die Grundlage des Geldes sind. Werte, die, wenn vernichtet, jede virtuelle Währungsabstützung lächerlich machen. Gold kann man bekanntlich weder fressen noch saufen. Die Goldvorkommen der gesamten Welt sind nicht einmal einen Kubikkilometer gross. Was ist das schon. Und auf Teilen dessen basieren einige Währungen. Wie lächerlich.

Die für alle Menschen essentiellen Werte wie gute Luft, sauberes Wasser, schöne Landschaften, die sollten bewertet werden, darauf sollte eine Währung basieren. Die Abwertung geschähe, wenn die Einwohner eines Landes diesem keine Sorge geben. Und wenn sie es über den Durchschnitt hinaus pflegen, könnte die Währung Stärke zeigen, weil dieses Land nicht nur reich im virtuellen, sondern auch im real erfahrbaren Sinne ist.

Es nimmt mich immer wunder, wie Leute, die in tageslichtlosen Börsen ihre Arbeitszeit verbraten, wohl gerade deswegen nicht mehr bemerken, was sie als Körper und Menschen brauchen. Dabei scheint es keine Rolle zu spielen, ob es sog. kleine oder grosse Tiere, ähhh Leute sind – Tiere täten sowas Bescheuertes nicht.

Da ist das Konto gross, die Arbeitslast zwar auch, und was machen die? Eine Villa ranklotzen in der Natur. Also gilt auch bei denen doch: Die Natur, das natürliche Umfeld, ist es, was wirklich zählt. Sonst könnten diese ihre Kohle ja eigentlich im Bunker unter dem Gotthard versaufen. Das wäre wenigstens konsequent.

Wie auch immer, der Bundesrat will nun als Wirkung der Krise die Regeln zum Betrieb von Gaskraftwerken lockern, der Bundesrat, nicht das Parlament. Weil der Betrieb nicht wirtschaftlich sei. Schimpf und Schande über den Bundesrat. Welches Lobbying hat wen dort erweicht?

Ok, der einzelne Mensch ist halt eine äusserst kurzzeitige Erscheinung. Er hat – wenn kein spezielles Interesse vorhanden – einfach keinen Blick für lange Prozesse.

Wenn die schnelle Wirtschaftskrise abläuft, reagiert er ebenfalls angemessen schnell, obwohl auch diese Krise vorhergesehen wurde. Der reale Schaden ist allerdings auch relativ gering.

Wenn die generationenlange Klimaänderung abläuft, reagiert er praktisch nicht, weil er sie nicht wahrnimmt. Der reale Schaden wird sich anschleichen, er wird Effekte haben, doch wird immer noch keiner die Ursachen wirklich beachten und entsprechend darauf reagieren wollen.

Diese Kurzlebigkeit ist eventuell ja auch die Chance, die der Menschheit bleibt: Denn die erfolgreichsten Lebensformen in der Fauna sind die Insekten, weil sie sich enorm schnell anpassen können. Im Vergleich mit einer Eintagesfliege (mitsamt ihrer Larvenphase) scheinen wir mit einem ca. 250 mal längerem Leben ebenfalls sehr langsam. Und doch bewegen wir uns, auch wenn die Fliege uns eher wie wir die Berge wahrnehmen dürfte. Als einzelnes Individuum merkt sie nicht, wie der Mensch grad eingreift und den Fluss trockenlegt, aus dem sie gekommen ist und in den sie ihre befruchteten Eier reinwirft. Sie hat aber auch kein höheres Bewusstsein, dies wahrzunehmen.

Sie hat dafür auch kein Ego. Sie will auch nichts erhalten, das Individuum spielt keine Rolle, nichtmal die Art ist wichtig. Das unterscheidet die Natur vom Menschen. Die Gesamtheit der Natur ist immer da, Namen und Formen sind unerheblich. Das macht es einfach.

Der Mensch hat oder ist hingegen ein höheres Bewusstsein, das grössere, längere Prozesse sehr wohl wahrnehmen kann, z.B. über das Mittel der Wissenschaft.

Wieso also benehmen wir – in den reichen Ländern – uns also nicht endlich mal wie Menschen und würdigen diese Prozesse? Aus vorhersehender Einsicht mit Wahlmöglichkeiten und nicht aus erleidender Nötigung, ohne Wahl?

Wer in der aktuellen Zeit meint, er dürfe das Notwendige unter dem Deckmäntelchen des Kurzzeitigen aus dem Fokus der Gesellschaft verdrängen, der handelt in meiner aktuellen Ansicht anmassend.

Welcome Home (PDF / JPG)

bloggerin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:00:56 +0000

Die Welcome Home Geschichte gibts nun auch als JPG direkt hier, zum anschauen, und, als PDF zum nachlesen. Allerdings ist dies die Version, welche bei “The Voicebox” erschienen ist, und ist von der Länge her etwas kürzer als der Text, welche in 9 Teilen auf diesem Blog zu lesen waren.

Wir wünschen viel Spass!

Wir sind diesmal nicht so. Es gibt alles auf einmal

TariPDF

Welcome Home (Teil 9 - Ende)

bloggerin — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:00:42 +0000

Dies ist der letze Teil des “Welcome Home” Textes, welches in “the Voicebox” die an einer Genfer Universität hergestellt wird. Der Text ist allerdings in Englisch. (Der Text, welcher auf dem Blog erscheint, ist Ausführlicher, als der Text, welcher im “The Voicebox” erschienen ist. Damit die Chance besteht, den Artikel zu sehen, wird in zwei Tagen die PDF Datei + JPG Datei herunterladbar sein)

Und nun viel Spass beim Englisch-Lesen

Welcome home
By Frances Narvaez

As if a manifestation of history, her words reverberate the philosophy of Confucius, the wit of Shakespeare, and the power of Napoleon. She knows what she is saying. “We don’t need a second Adolf Hitler to see what is wrong.”
She also knows what she’s doing. And she goes beyond that. She tries to share with the rest of the world her new-found love for nature through her knack in photography.
Photography—it’s an outlet for her to turn the on button in people’s minds, making them realize what they have to lose should they continue stepping on the delicate skin of nature. It’s also a yank in the stomach, a painful reminder of how human beings have stolen nature. It’s not just a love for photography… it’s a love for nature.
Sandra-Lia rests her ivory chin on her pristine hands, fondles with the golden mandala on her ring finger, perhaps thinking of her fiancé. It’s not just love for nature. It’s love for Christopher, who looks back at her with the same shimmer of ardor.
“I don’t mind that Sandra was formerly a man. I didn’t know her as a man and I am only interested in our present and our future, not in the past… I always saw and will see her as a woman. And she is the best [one] I know.” The Church bells are scheduled to ring for Sandra-Lia and Christopher on July.
A page from her book, Taris Impressionen, sings the simple elegance of a modern-day Shangri-La, a hidden paradise untouched by human hands. The gentle waves kiss the belly of the sand; the sunset says see you tomorrow to the clouds gently rolling down the curtain of the sky to give way to the moon. Beneath this sublime, split-second capturing of nature reads the words her hands have painted:
ich wünschte, sie wären hier, an diesem Ort. Diesem Ort, voller Ruhe, voller Schönheit, allein, zu zweit, und doch so weit.
I wish you were here, in this place. This place so peaceful, so beautiful; alone, with someone, and so far away.

It is only perhaps the intervention of fate that would release one from the prison of himself. For Sandra-Lia, however, it took careful reflection, determination, inner force—and a lot of guts.
Standing mighty, tall, and proud, Sandra-Lia looks at her double in the mirror, the perfectly-contoured lady who has successfully trekked the slippery roads towards womanhood. Her real friends—birds, squirrels, cats and fish all abound—gleefully sing with her as she chirps, “Hello, Sandra-Lia – welcome home.”

Welcome Home (Teil 8)

bloggerin — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:00:50 +0000

Dies ist der 8. Teil des “Welcome Home” Textes, welches in “the Voicebox” die an einer Genfer Universität hergestellt wird. Der Text ist allerdings in Englisch. (Der Text, welcher auf dem Blog erscheint, ist Ausführlicher, als der Text, welcher im “The Voicebox” erschienen ist. Damit die Chance besteht, den Artikel zu sehen, wird am Ende der 9 Teile der Teil von mir PDF erscheinen.)

Und nun viel Spass beim Englisch-Lesen

Welcome home
By Frances Narvaez

Made from the earth, for the earth

Transsexual. Transgender. Transwoman. Call her whatever you want, she won’t care. She does not care. For Sandra-Lia is not just another blessing from planet Transylvania—she is a hero sent to protect planet Earth.
Sandra-Lia takes a step back, grasping her Pentax camera tightly. Takes a step forward. Hunches a bit. No, no, not the right angle… Squints her Audrey Hepburn eyes. Tilts her head, her cacao hair gracefully flowing sideways, like a hula skirt.
As if afraid to capture nature indelicately with the wrong shutter speed, aperture, and angle of attack, Sandra-Lia meticulously fondles with the camera first, eyeing the leaf. She taps her fingers. As if a bolt of lightning suddenly struck her right hand, she clicks the shutter.
The leaf has suddenly turned into a work of art inside her Pentax. “Now that I love myself, I can love the world,” a master environmentalist of her own right, Sandra Lia proudly declares how much her love for the environment has changed after the operation. Carrying her camera, Sandra-Lia is on her way towards Green Brick Road. She will rescue every lion. Every scarecrow. Every “tin man.” And maybe, just maybe, the green-faced wicked witch of the East as well.
“You have to get liberation by yourself and after that, you can fight for others. Some people spend 90 years fighting for themselves and just a year for others.” Sandra-Lia may have hushed down a bit on her fight for transsexuals these past few days, but her eyes are set on something she considers more profound. “I fight for acceptance in the woman’s world, but I will invest my energy more in nature projects—it’s more important.” Sandra-Lia’s body is the stem of the flower of her life. Nature is the roots.
“You have to fight for the next generation, not only for yourself; my life is only a thousandth part of a second.”

Welcome Home (Teil 7)

bloggerin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:00:17 +0000

Dies ist der 7. Teil des “Welcome Home” Textes, welches in “the Voicebox” die an einer Genfer Universität hergestellt wird. Der Text ist allerdings in Englisch. (Der Text, welcher auf dem Blog erscheint, ist Ausführlicher, als der Text, welcher im “The Voicebox” erschienen ist. Damit die Chance besteht, den Artikel zu sehen, wird am Ende der 9 Teile der Teil von mir PDF erscheinen.)

Und nun viel Spass beim Englisch-Lesen

Welcome home
By Frances Narvaez

“What I am needs no excuses”
“She always fights for her rights and for the rights of the weak persons in our society. And she always tries to make the world a little bit better,” Christopher Peifer, a close friend, says.
Sandra-Lia also knows how to fight for herself.

At the bus stop, Sandra-Lia talks to her ebony-haired friend about the correlation between George W. Bush’s administration and man’s cruel hands vandalizing nature. Suddenly the world seems to stop. All eyes on her. On her. Is it because: – she has received so much media attention? Hey, she’s very familiar. I know I’ve seen her somewhere. – she is speaking in eloquent English? – her features is as heart-stopping, as head-turning as those Vogue models? Or is it because the tone of her bass voice just quite didn’t match with the latter? Although Sandra-Lia has been freed from the prison of her own skin, she enters another one that is of a smaller degree: the prison of discrimination against transsexuals. “It’s a daily fight,” she reveals, trying to hold her breath. For Sandra-Lia, life may be tough. But she’s tougher. “A transsexual is firstly a man or a woman… and a man or a woman is firstly a human.
Two emerald-eyed teenagers with sunflower hair fix their gaze on Sandra. They giggle.
“We are a group of people who need this operation and support, acceptance, tolerance. We
don’t need discussions on ‘God wanted you to become man or God wanted you to become a woman.’ It’s sick—these conversations. Nobody knows how God wanted you to be. I don’t think God wanted us to destroy this earth.”
At the chestnut stall, a lady with hair like nimbus clouds shifts her weight to her wooden cane, walks along the cobbled lane, her looks filled with a thought wondering if Sandra is insane.
For Sandra-Lia, the greatest problem of humankind is intolerance: The length of human’s thinking reaches only as far as the eyes can see the horizon. “In Switzerland, the horizon ends at the mountains.” In Switzerland, Sandra-Lia wanted to run as kantonsrat for the left-wing party, the Young Socialists. But the party “let me fall down… because I am transsexual.” In Switzerland, finding work as a transsexual is like playing chess: it is almost impossible to win. Sandra-Lia sent 120 job applications, and 120 wrote her back, pinning down a myriad of excuses why she was refused. In Switzerland, people try to fit her into the category of a man or a woman, arguing with her for half an hour. Talk about her in the bus. Stare at her through eyes burning with flames of bias.

Welcome Home (Teil 6)

bloggerin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:00:22 +0000

Dies ist der 6. Teil des “Welcome Home” Textes, welches in “the Voicebox” die an einer Genfer Universität hergestellt wird. Der Text ist allerdings in Englisch. (Der Text, welcher auf dem Blog erscheint, ist Ausführlicher, als der Text, welcher im “The Voicebox” erschienen ist. Damit die Chance besteht, den Artikel zu sehen, wird am Ende der 9 Teile der Teil von mir PDF erscheinen.)

Und nun viel Spass beim Englisch-Lesen

Welcome home
By Frances Narvaez

A giant leap for (wo)mankind
Sandra-Lia shifts her gaze from her raspberry frizz to the freewheeling clouds of the sapphire sky, admiring her little Baroque town of Solothurn, as if a foreigner in her own home. A foreigner she may seem, but she is at home in her own body.
Only one in 30,000 individuals pass through the bridge between males and females—the so-called “transsexuals”. Sandra-Lia, being the determined, faithful, and resilient person that she has always been, is now one of them.

Sandra-Lia opens her eyes, surprised to be back to the human world. Hallo, Frau Infanger, a nurse greets her. After two weeks flying around the hospital halls, Sandra-Lia was finally back at her nest. “It’s like winning the lottery, like getting two lives… It was the first time I felt like my body was my home. Mine mine mine… I’m the luckiest woman in the world!” Sandra-Lia exclaims at her new body. A sterling silver necklace with an image of a fairy that seemingly casts a spell on Sandra-Lia’s heart dangles from her neck. The curves of her lower body are echoed by the tight, boot-cut light blue jeans; her upper torso is wrapped in a velvet red blouse. Her candlelight fingers are slender; her immaculate hands unmarked by any masculine activity. Her wavy chocolate hair is streaked with a golden red stripe, matching the color of her lips, casting a light shadow on her unblemished, hair-free face.
It is only that baritone voice that would give one the hint that she was one a member of the male tribe.
“I have no regrets at all. [People] ask me, ‘how are you feeling now? It’s difficult to explain; you can’t explain it! Normal men or women don’t know the feeling if you’re in the wrong body.” Now, everything she sees, feels, hears, tastes, is “a thousand times more intense.”
Now, she doesn’t have to join the Swiss army nor pay the only-in-Switzerland Fire Tax.
Now, she has a clear understanding of how it is to be a “real” woman. “I can’t explain what it’s like to be a man, but I can explain what it’s like to be a girl.” Sandra-Lia’s voice echoes a tone of conviction and pride, as if she has just created a new language only women can understand.
Sandra-Lia basks in the glory of womanhood. One eyebrow up, chin tilted slightly to the right, lips pucked. “As a woman, you have more choices; a woman is more flexible. I can do 3-4 things at the same time; women are a ‘multi-choice operating system.’”

Welcome Home (Teil 5)

bloggerin — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:00:26 +0000

Dies ist der 5. Teil des “Welcome Home” Textes, welches in “the Voicebox” die an einer Genfer Universität hergestellt wird. Der Text ist allerdings in Englisch. (Der Text, welcher auf dem Blog erscheint, ist Ausführlicher, als der Text, welcher im “The Voicebox” erschienen ist. Damit die Chance besteht, den Artikel zu sehen, wird am Ende der 9 Teile der Teil von mir PDF erscheinen.)

Und nun viel Spass beim Englisch-Lesen

Welcome home
By Frances Narvaez

Metamorphosis
Some live in 12 square meters of prison for a lifetime. Others do with six for several months. Sandra-Lia, however, spent 25 years of imprisonment in her own body, a two-square meter mélange of skin, organs, and liquids.

“I spent 25 years of my life in my prison, and now I’ve come out.” Free she is. For tomorrow was the day when Sandra-Lia finally signed the declaration of independence from her male body. The air in Zurich University Hospital reeked of alcohol-and-Betadine concoction; the walls pulsated as people waited to get their injections. In a room upstairs, Sandra-Lia spread open the wings of the terrace window, took her last view of the Alps, closed her eyes for a few moments, and breathed it all out. Deep within the caves of her mind, she took it all in: I placed my little seed on the earth and now, two years later, I’m earning it. Tomorrow, I’m earning it. Sandra-Lia, however, was prepared for any risk that may come across her way. She is comforted—
the sun seemed to envelope its rays around her; the wind gently kissed her; the shadow of the Alps did not seem to forget to wave back at her; the city of Zurich almost seemed like a fairytale town. If only this was Neverland, where you could be anyone you wanted to be.
Wow, she says, almost hushing, “this is a last good day on earth.” 24 hours later, eight in the morning. A nurse comes in to give her a sleeping pill, when she is even barely awake—
Sandra-Lia falls back to sleep and is carried to the Disney Park of the hospital—the operating room.
iiiiiiing!
bzzzzzt…
toooooot (with a 90-decibel pitch)
kring… kring. kriiing!
God only knows how the yapping and twisting and turning of scissors and blades and tweezers on an individual’s “intimate parts” could give her the feeling of being in the correct body. And so the die is cast. Sandra-Lia passes the point of no return.

Welcome Home (Teil 4)

bloggerin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:00:14 +0000

Dies ist der 4. Teil des “Welcome Home” Textes, welches in “the Voicebox” die an einer Genfer Universität hergestellt wird. Der Text ist allerdings in Englisch. (Der Text, welcher auf dem Blog erscheint, ist Ausführlicher, als der Text, welcher im “The Voicebox” erschienen ist. Damit die Chance besteht, den Artikel zu sehen, wird am Ende der 9 Teile der Teil von mir PDF erscheinen.)

Und nun viel Spass beim Englisch-Lesen

Welcome home
By Frances Narvaez

Embarking on the flight to womanhood
Sandra-Lia sits back on her ebony chair, gives a wide grin as her eyes wander around her apartment, a place she calls her “palace.” Figurines of fairies and elves silently listen as the room radiates with the echoing glory from Les Misérables’ Do you hear the people sing? And Together with the French, Sandra-Lia sings out the melody of triumph, belting out freedom and redemption.
1799 was the end of the French revolution. July 4, 1776 was the United States’ independence. July 4, 2003 was hers.
July 4, 2003—deep inside the caverns of his forlorn life-force, it was what he wanted all along. Womanhood was the knife that would free him from the ropes of turmoil that has tied him all these years.
Adrian sends off his polos and boxers and suits to Africa. And all the emblems that were a reminder of what hindered him from knowing his true self.

This is the point where Sandra passes the swinging bridge. Except that the bridge will not swing back. No—there is no turning back.
And from that day on, Adrian came to be known as Sandra-Lia. But coming out of his male cocoon and becoming a female butterfly wasn’t enough for Sandra. For her, it was an all-package deal. The thought of having a gender reassignment operation did not escape her mind.
“It was all or nothing. You can win or you lose all. It was like a second chance. I only had this chance. If I don’t have this operation, my life…is nonsense. As a normal person—you are in your body, your home.”
Sandra-Lia’s eyebrows almost meet, her head almost falls back, shaking, recalling those days of puzzlement.
“Before my operation, I was not in my home. I stand up in the morning and watch [myself] in the mirror, and I think, ‘who is this?’’ You have an inner idea about yourself and you see [someone different].
Waking up in those days was like having snow in the summer. Sandra-Lia had to change it.
“The body is 90% of life. Or maybe 100…” Sandra-Lia trails off, her heavy tone suddenly turning into mist, and looks away.
The female life force first possessed Sandra-Lia when she took her first tablet of female hormones a day after coming out. The spirit did not release itself from her, and the die is cast indeed.
Sandra-Lia strangled her male mannerisms, beat her male thoughts, and stabbed her male spirit.
The whole world seemed to go against her plans, of course, attempting to stop her from undergoing the operation, pouring down onto her a storm of criticisms. But a small population gave her an umbrella of acceptance.
With the support of Transensyndikat, a Zurich-based group designed by transsexuals for transsexuals, Sandra-Lia found her way to discovering the anima in her, like a young child fondling with the world around her. They cradled her with support, fed her with power, and gave her the milk of doing it “the right way.”
Sandra-Lia’s face fills with the sparks of an ice castle. After several sessions with a psychiatrist who determined that she was “psychologically eligible” for sex change operation—the chessboard flag of her life—Sandra-Lia was ready to hit the gas pedal. May 2005, a little less than two years after her coming out, was suddenly so near.
“I wanted to have this operation from inside … there were no confusions.” She enunciates each word carefully, her eyes filled with certainty like a queen’s, chin up like the first petal of a flower in early spring. “The months before the operation were hard, strange; they were strong. The nights were long—why is it not today? I was excited.” As Sandra-Lia crossed the bridge that connected the day of the coming out and the operation, she wanted time to run faster. Instead of giving time steroids, however, Sandra-Lia did her share by visiting Berlin, working for Civil Service International, and trying to paint a portrait of her political career. She also worked at McDonald’s, flippin’ burgers and greeting customers with a guten tag while waiting for her butterfly wings to unfold: “I was lovin’ it.”
As the days crept towards her like a caterpillar approaching its period of transformation, Sandra-Lia felt she was luckier by the hour.

(Der nächste Teil erscheint am Samstag um 6.00 Uhr / Next Part on Saturday 6 AM)

Welcome Home (Teil 3)

bloggerin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:00:32 +0000

Dies ist der 3. Teil des “Welcome Home” Textes, welches in “the Voicebox” die an einer Genfer Universität hergestellt wird. Der Text ist allerdings in Englisch. (Der Text, welcher auf dem Blog erscheint, ist Ausführlicher, als der Text, welcher im “The Voicebox” erschienen ist. Damit die Chance besteht, den Artikel zu sehen, wird am Ende der 9 Teile der Teil von mir PDF erscheinen.)

Und nun viel Spass beim Englisch-Lesen

Welcome home
By Frances Narvaez

To be or not to be: that is not the question
The struggle continued on until early adulthood for Adrian.
After blowing the twenty-three candles on his cake, Adrian sung to himself, “alea iacta est (the die is cast).” The confused, irresolute Adrian set a timeline, giving himself two options. “After this timeline, if I don’t become a woman, I’ll buy myself a gun and I’ll give myself my last… you know.
The air around Sandra-Lia suddenly falls into a hush; she points her index and middle fingers to her nose.
It was either: goodbye, world, or goodbye, manhood.
“And I said to myself, OK, the coming out is a little bit better than the other way.”
Adrian chose the road less traveled. He gave himself three months to finally live a new life; to come out of that masculine shell that has for so long imprisoned him in its shells of uncertainty and loss of self.
In these three months, he also flew from store to store, finding the perfect blouse and tight-fitting jeans for his perfect contour.
He talked to people—his mother (who reacted with: “For a moment I thought if it was another spleen or whether she [Adrian] was serious, and with time I realized she was indeed serious” and his acquaintances—telling them to call her nothing else but Sandra, to peek through feminine lenses and look at her as a woman.
It was no surprise, however, that they doubted his words. It was as if he was trapped in a fishtank, trying to reach out to the rest of the world, trying to make humans understand his situation—that all these years, he was swimming around, enclosed in these crystal walls of stigma, going nowhere.
Waved his arms. Called out for help.
But for those who watched him, all that came out of his mouth were bubbles.

(Der nächste Teil erscheint am Donnerstag um 6.00 Uhr / Next Part on Tuesday 6 AM)

Welcome Home (Teil 2)

bloggerin — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:00:31 +0000

Dies ist der 2. Teil des “Welcome Home” Textes, welches in “the Voicebox” die an einer Genfer Universität hergestellt wird. Der Text ist allerdings in Englisch. (Der Text, welcher auf dem Blog erscheint, ist Ausführlicher, als der Text, welcher im “The Voicebox” erschienen ist. Damit die Chance besteht, den Artikel zu sehen, wird am Ende der 9 Teile der Teil von mir PDF erscheinen.)

Und nun viel Spass beim Englisch-Lesen

Welcome home
By Frances Narvaez

Portrait of the artist as a young “girl”
Flipping sideways her coffee-colored hair enveloping itself around her neck, Sandra-Lia declares, “I was born with it… For every second of my bloody life … I’ve always been a girl. For me, it was just a question of how to get it.”
At the tender age of three, Adrian already had a firm sense of his identity. It was the first time he told his mother he’s a girl. And since that day, his mother, Dorothea Infanger, never failed to notice the sincerity in Adrian’s words.
“Noticed? There were certainly signs already as a child, looking back; like with Barbie games, rather playing with girls, he liked playing with girls, but yes… [he] came with little skirts,” Dorothea declares in an interview with SF television, with eyes trying hard to look back twenty-five years ago.
As a child, Adrian would creep to his bed, clasp his tiny hands together, and look at the glistening stars, his eyes reflecting their spark of hope. Dear God, he would pray, I wish that when I open my eyes tomorrow, there would be world freedom. And I would be a girl.
“I lost my belief in God.” There was still no freedom in the world. And I was still not a girl.
Adrian almost lost his belief in Santa Claus, too. During that season of the year when the nights freeze and the atmosphere is a hundred degrees chillier, he would warm himself by writing a letter to Jolly Ol’ St. Nick, asking for a Barbie doll.
(“Get me a Barbie, Get me a Barbie!”
“He never got me one,” Sandra-Lia breaks into laughter, as if trying to hide the pain of rejection from that one good ol’ grampa every child turns to for love.
He was an eagle in a flock of chickens—playing house with young girls was his ideal pastime. He savored every moment of being a girl, even for just an hour a day. “That was for me a fantastic feeling,” she says, squinting her eyes, as if trying to go back to those days.
Attempts to match his body with his mindset took shape in the form of cross-dressing. He first joined the clan when he took part in the fasnacht, the Swiss-German counterpart of Mardi Gras. He would sort through female dresses, skirts, blouses… Sandra-Lia giggles, with a nostalgic look in her eyes, but women’s shoes were my favorite.
Adrian’s parents, being the fortress of righteousness that they are, tried to pull him back to the realm of boyhood. “I pulled him back, told him it was for his protection, that he would be laughed at,” Dorothea recalls, with a tone of wistfulness in her voice.
And somehow, Adrian gave in.
His parents gave him Lego toys to play with. But he never thought of them as a “boy” game—“I couldn’t say [if it was a boy game or a girl game]; I don’t know the difference between a girl and a boy; for me, a game is a game; it’s not normal, but it’s not different.“
During those years when a boy’s voice normally cracks, when hair suddenly shoots up everywhere around the body like stray weed, when interest in girls becomes the lead and love for video games becomes the understudy, Adrian tried to play the role of the boy in him.
For Adrian, it was like trying to audition for Eponine’s role in Les Misérables without knowing the song On My Own. It made no sense. On the outside, he tried to picture himself like every young boy.
He clothed himself with normal male outfits; tried to talk with a normal male tone; and, like a normal guy, had three love interests—all female.
But in him, it was like being sucked down in that gray realm between heaven and hell.
“But in me, I was really fighting,” Sandra-Lia recalls disdainfully.
Her ivory face turns into a wrinkle; her melodic voice suddenly quivers. “I was never really very lucky… Something was very wrong… I searched with all my power… I couldn’t find it… Maybe it was just a fetish. But it was not… Maybe I was a guy [after all] – but I’m not a guy, not at all!”
All along, Adrian was in the eye of the tornado. The tornado kept spinning and spinning, looking for the next victim to destroy; Adrian sat in the peace of the eye, flicking match after match to search that missing part of his heart, which the tornado around him wanted to tear down.

(Der nächste Teil erscheint am Dienstag um 6.00 Uhr / Next Part on Tuesday 6 AM)