Broken bones/Does that mean I am getting old or just a klutz?

Oh how I love to fall and break my bones. Just kidding, but seems like it is my fate.

I have had 7 falls with 4 broken bones. I guess my first fall happened in my 50's. (years old) I slipped on a plastic bag in my apartment, landed on my hard wood floor on my shoulder. It was horrible and when the Dr. told me It would be at least three months till I healed, I did not know how I could just stop my life. After all, "Every thing I do is so important," I learned otherwise! The only thing in my life that was important was to heal. The shoulder effected other bones so I had to use a cane. When I thought I would never be normal again, suddenly I was me. Nature heals us, the body heals, we are all lucky. OK. that was number one.

#2 : I fell off of my bike and broke my wrist. Not so bad to fall off my bike, but did my wrist have to break? so there I was again in a sling, physical therapy etc,

#3 got even better. This time I slipped on a Clorox floor falling backwards and landing on my elbow. Yup, shattered and broken; I was on my way out the door going on a trip wanting to leave the apartment sparkling clean. OK, all I had to do this time was have two intense operations, go to therapy, be incapacitated and heal.

#4 This was a nice fall on the sidewalks of NYC falling again on my lucky left wrist; ambulance, doctors, settings, healing. Good bye to those who had no sympathy for poor me.

Those were the broken ones.

I once fell off of a train in Eastern Europe, I was grabbing my luggage as the door closed, so went with the luggage on to the platform landing on my back. Next thing I knew I was in an East German hospital Ward wheeled in as The lady from New York City.... so that makes five. I had sprained my back.

The 6th fall was in China at the Ritz Carlton after sipping their lovely tea. Upon exit I missed the 2 steps down and there I was flat on the floor being escorted out of the Ritz and into a limo back to my hostel. I had sprained my ankle.

For the life of me I cannot remember # 7 but I know there was one.

As soon as the last fragment healed, I was up and off with my life, never looking back. OK. lucky 7 has made me more cautious. I have slowed down a bit and look more where I am going; spending more time looking down than looking up especially on the side walks of NYC. A fall can happen any time and at any moment. It is awful; nothing teaches you more how life can change on a dime.

So what you think am I simply a Klutz? Maybe we should all have four legs.
Carol Sue Gershman.

Being Part of the Crowd

Twice this week I went with the crowds, Fireworks and Lady Gaga... Guess what? My girlfriend stayed home for both and had a remarkable experience of joy in front of the TV... Me? I was pushed, shoved, told by cops where to go, where to stand, aching feet in high heals, no transportation home from the works. But I wasssssss there!
Carol Sue Gershman

July 4th/NYC

Fun in the city.
Have you walked the Brooklyn Bridge? They are out there in droves and it was something I never did before. Before I knew it I was in Brooklyn. Charming area I must say, even though I nearly had heat stroke on the way over.
Fireworks atop a restaurant roof top called Print was divine. I could have been anywhere in the world high in the sky with champagne and yum yum desserts. Only $100.00 per person to get to the roof top.. Ha Ha.
P. S. For the one hundred there was none of the outrageous music that accompanied the fireworks. They were tuned into jazz. Another ha ha.
It felt like New Years Eve in the heat getting home, not a bus, not a cab in site all the way over on 11th Avenue. Finally took off my shoes and walked the very dirty streets till I could find transportation. I sure did not care running barefoot on the side walks.
Lately, my favorite going out is staying home in my delightful apartment.
HAPPY 4TH TO ALL.
Carol Sue Gershman

Wake up call/ The Fall

Dear Friends,
Recently I had yet another fall. This is my 7th with 3 times broken bones. What is interesting about a fall, as my cousin just said, is you are perfectly wonderfully fine and the next minute you are in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Last year I broke my elbow and needed two operations. I healed well over time.
Now this particular time, I had just had breakfast with my lover. Mind you, we do not see each other often, but i know him for many years. It was divine to see him. Soon we would get together to have the wild sex that we both enjoy.
Moments later, after leaving him, I fell. I laid on the sidewalk not being able to get up, but did not want to call him. I waited till I got to the emergency ward and then called saying, "You would never believe where I am." He lives only 3 blocks from the hospital but did he come over? Absolutely not!
He did call later in the day to see what happened. I told him I had broken my wrist and had excruciating pain when they set my bone. We talked how life changes on a dime and he said he would call the next day.
One month later I heard his apologies. I told him to go see the Wizard, you know, to get a heart and some brains. We both laughed.
We hung up on happy terms.
WAKE UP CAROL SUE..... My fall proved to me that this man does not care one bit about me except for our wild sex evenings.
My fall proved this to me because I did not get it before.
Now do you see how my breaking of bones was a gift?
READ BELOW BLOG
Carol Sue Gershman

A Surprise Gift/Open it up

The Gift

Have you ever known anyone who said: I’m going through the worst time in my life -- I’m so happy! I doubt it, because when tough stuff happens it just hurts and its just stinks. Loss, illness, separation, not fun stuff. But what I have learned and what I want to talk about tonight is how some of the really tough stuff in my life ended up being wake up calls for me to change. And that these wake up calls, if you look at them in another way, are actually gifts. Maybe veiled a bit, maybe not the box of chocolate you wanted from Sprungli, or the new ipad, but another sort of gift.

Because there is one thing I know for sure, and that is stuff happens, and sometimes real crappy and painful stuff happens. The truth is no one walks through life’s doors without having some challenge come their way at some point. So the question is not how to avoid those experiences, because you can’t, but rather, the question is what will your attitude be towards it when it hits. Can you use it as a wake up call, or do you see it as a total pain in the neck and wished it would just go away. Do you allow it to make yourself miserable and angry and resentful and walk around with a poor me face? or do you take it and learn from it and change and deepen. That is the real meaning of free choice. How are you going to choose to react to the tough stuff that comes your way? Because it could bring with it changes in your life you never knew would come like where you live or what you do, and or it could bring with it feelings that you don’t often have.

A good example of this is, I remember some years back having abdominal surgery which made walking around outside really painful and tough, I was so slow, and I remember all of a sudden seeing people who were permanently disabled in wheel chairs and canes, - people I never even looked at before, and all of a sudden I felt so much compassion for them. That compassion and real understanding I never had before to that extent. That was its gift to me, to experience real compassion and understanding when people are vulnerable.

Or, recently my Mom broke her wrist and she told me She has never been happier. I said it has forced you to be more nurturing and self loving and maybe that’s why you feel happier, and she said well why didn’t I feel this way when I broke my elbow last year and I said probably because you didn’t learn to be more nurturing and self loving to yourself, and life just keeps throwing the punches until we wake up and learn the lesson, or experience our life differently

And that is just what happened to me. Years ago, I really wanted to have children. But I instead had miscarriages. I didn’t have one, not two, not but three miscarriages, and it was really very very painful. I cried all the time. But I have to say those miscarriages pushed me into a spiritual life that I probably never would of walked into without them. And so I’ve come to think about them as my wake up calls, but it took 3 hits for me to wake up. It was like, the first one came and boom, and I didn’t change anything, and then life said, oh no, she’s not getting it, lets go for another punch, and boom another miscarriage, and nope, she didn’t make any changes, and then life said, better go for the big bomb, and boom, the third one just propelled me out like I was a cannon ball and pushed me and made me take huge risks and give up my whole way I was living, who I was married to, where I was living, everything changed. Because that is how wake up calls happen, life just keeps giving out the punches until the thing that has to shift shifts. Some people get it faster, and some need a lot of beating.


Why things happen I really don’t know. Why you got that, and she got that, and that happened to this one, and that happened to that one. And this one has this, and that one got that. We really don’t know why.
Sometimes I think we are like an ant walking on a persons arm. The ant doesn’t know its walking on a human arm. It doesn’t say wow this is a nice arm, I think I’ll walk up to the wrist, or I think I’ll hang out on this hair, or I’ll rest on the persons freckle. It’s just unconscious it’s just an ant not really knowing or understanding whats going on. We are like an ant; we don’t really know what is going on. Sometimes I think we are programmed to not know.

But the one thing I do know, is that its not the experience but rather our attitude towards it that matters. Do you allow it to bring you down and feel angry, or do you see it as a potential opportunity. One thing difficult things do bring is a feeling of vulnerability. Maybe vulnerability and the willingness to be in it and to show others that is where we are is the highest state we can be in. Because in that state the heart is so raw and open, so not hidden in its shell of pride and self important.
And so fellow Toastmasters and guests, perhaps the next time you are just living your life, having a cappuccino at Starbucks, driving home, walking into your office, whatever it is, and some difficult thing hits you, hits you hard, perhaps you can look beyond the painful experience and wonder what kind of wake up call is this for you. What is life pushing you to see or to change, where is life pointing you? What kind of human emotion is it bringing to you, compassion, understanding, love, because hidden behind the rotten experience, could be the one thing you needed that will push you to really live who you are. And that friends is a gift.
Leslie Kuster.... (my daughter)

Organize, prioritize, satisfy your life

Make your to do list, prioritize, set your goals, do time management, organize, get up earlier, don’t waste time, don’t waste your talents, do more, do it faster, use your gifts, don’t waste your life, reach your potential. What all these expressions that I just said boils down to is one thing: Be productive. But what I’m telling you tonight instead is stop focusing on being productive, Just throw all this productivity crap out the window, and replace with something a lot more satisfying, which I will tell you about shortly.

Being productive is seen in our culture as a incredible virtue and perhaps in some of your families as well, certainly in mine as I come from a family whose every member accomplishes great things such as profitable businesses, to writing books, to being an artist, to helicopter skiing in powder, AND being gorgeous all at the same time. Sounds good does’t it,

But the problem with it is when we are not as productive as we want to be, we can get very disappointment in ourselves or start to feel inadequate.
I’vie experienced this lately a lot myself, and have been feeling a bit anxious about all the things I have not yet accomplished. The reason I wanted to talk about this tonight is perhaps some of you feel this way too. And so I have come across some ideas that I want to share with you which could help. What we need is a whole new way of looking at getting things done. So what is it?

There are three important steps.
The first is to Focus on Fulfillment. The first shift is to switch from asking how many things can I get done to what actions can I take that will make me fulfilled. Just this slight alteration is totally revolutionary. For example some things that make me feel fulfilled is having a cup of tea first thing in the morning in my favorite china cup and journaling, or spending time with my husband somewhere in nature, Now it doesn’t’ seem like I’m getting much done, I’m not checking off all my to do list, but I’m creating a lot of positivity feelings inside myself which brings me to the next very important step which is:

#2. Create value: Creating value is much more meaningful way to view how effective you spend your time, than just being productive and crossing off lists. If you are always focused on productivity, get it done, quick faster, move on to the next easy to lose focus of the value in what your doing. When you think of Value think about asking three questions is it creating value for you personally, is it creating value for your family or partner, or is it creating value to the community or world.

For example, I could of chosen not to do this speech today which would of freed up a lot of time to work on many of the other things on my to do list like my web business, but I choose to do this because I felt that exploring this topic had value for me, it resonated with me and appeals to what I’m going through and hopefully it has value for my community, you the toastmasters and the guests here as well, as perhaps it resonates with some of you and so. And so when you are deciding what to work on choose it based on how much value it has, not on whether it has to be done or not.

3. The third important step in all of is called following your natural rhythms. That might sound a little airy fairy. But it is an intuitive way of living. It requires some flexibility. It means paying attention to how you feel. Nature functions within the laws of expansion an d contraction, growth and death, and we forget that we are part of nature and there are times to create and times to withdraw.

And the beauty of this system is when you are fulfilled and you do things that have value, and follow your natural rhythm then guess what? surprise you are very productive and accomplish many things!

These steps may seem impossible and unrealistic if you work in a company and someone else dictates your time, but perhaps you can bring just a smidgeon of these ideas even into your day. Remember the 3 important steps when approaching that long to do list #1, focus on fulfillment, Second, Create value, and lastly pay attention to your natural rhyums.

Throw the idea of being more productive out the window, cancel that time management class you were thinking of taking, and replace it with doing action that creates fulfillment and value. Bringing these practices into your life will bring more joy and contentment and This is truly what is most important. Thank you.

Leslie Kuster (my daughter)

My famous ex-husband

Norman turned out to be my best friend. He is a particularly good ex-husband and I am a particularly good ex-wife. We are family and he is still the head of our family even though we are divorced and apart for almost 30 years. He is as well a great Dad.

Now he has become a famous person. How? He sought out the people of Albania; Muslims who saved the Jews during the war.

Nobody knew of these people untll Norman arrived and began interviewing and photographic. Until then and all of these years it was a well kept secret. Actually the Albanians did not so much as consider that they were keeping secrets. It was something they never thought enough to mention. They were doing what they wanted to do and that was to save the Jews of their country.

The holocast museum in Israel honored Normans work with a huge exhibition; next came the UN and now this unforgettable photographic journey is going world wide.

To learn more visit www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/.../besa-muslims-saved-jews.html

carol sue gershman