Re-Thinking The Meaning of 'Survivor'

By: Brad Ludden

For the past 20 years I have found myself kayaking down rivers around the world. At the age of 9 my parents bought me my first boat and since then I have known nothing else. It has been my passion, profession and lifestyle. Over the years I have used my kayak as a vehicle to travel to over 40 countries, amass over 100 first descents, intimately experience countless cultures, challenge myself in every sense, land on the covers of national magazines and TV programs and be featured in numerous films.

I was facing rapids that nobody had ever kayaked, rapids with fatal consequences and I was surviving them. I was traveling down rivers that were home to crocodiles, hippos, mambas, cobras, caymans and angry gun-wielding locals and, somehow, coming out alive. Yeah, I thought I was a survivor ... until I started First Descents. Read More

How Not to Feel Old ... On a Bike!

By: Kelley Connors

Padded cycling shorts, foldable tire tubes, CO2, custom fit road bike, sunscreen, headband…and more. If you like buying “gear” and “gadgets” you’ll love road biking! Not only that, but the health benefits of cycling on a regular basis include greater cardiovascular strength and strong leg muscles. Always ready to try a new sport, especially that I’m now “of a certain age”, you must know my bike riding track record is no more than what it was when I was six years old…down to the penny candy store and back.

Yet, once I found out that not all people with leukemia are as fortunate as my newly-diagnosed dad, I figured…the worse that can happen is that I am humiliated on my first hill and have to jump in the sag wagon, a version of a van taxi on a mountain. Read More

Being a Friend Requires Acts of Love

By: Jane Green

TEN years ago, I packed up my belongings, and with my 13-month-old child, moved from my home in England, to America. My then-husband, an American, had yet to tell his job we had decided to cross the pond, and so I moved alone, waiting for him to find the right time.

Those first few weeks in an empty house – our furniture had somehow gone AWOL – I learned, very quickly how hard it was to get by without the support of family, and my family had always lived within a three mile radius.

But I was lucky. I found friends. Quickly. And I drew them close, came to think of them as my family of choice. I thought, back then, I knew what friendship required, and how to be a friend.

Heidi was my first friend, found when our sons were tiny, when we were in each other’s pockets, lives, homes every day. Then I found others, when I briefly moved up to Litchfield county, where my marriage broke down, and then, when I knew I had to come home, home to Westport, Dani and I moved into a tiny beach cottage with my four children, whereupon I fell in love with life at the beach. Shortly thereafter, I fell in love with my landlord, and three years later, in a tiny ceremony he became my husband. Life was was perfect ...Read More