The 703rd Sunrise
Nothing is infinite in this life - not wilderness, not Brahms symphonies, not even the number of sunrises you have left to wake up for.
The surly visage of Johannes Brahms is not what most often crosses my mind this early in the morning - only a few minutes after 3 a.m. — but there is a reason I am lying in bed thinking about the composer one critic called “one of the romantic period’s most conflicted musical characters.” Allow me to explain.
Like anyone, It is difficult to pull myself out of bed some mornings, rising in the dark, stumbling through my gear, packing to get down to the Little Dipper at the dock and out into the islands before sunrise. Some mornings the gravitational pull of warm blankets and a soft pillow is exceptionally powerful. Motivation to break that force of gravity must come from wherever I can find it.
One such motivating moment came at a small gathering of friends when someone thought me excessive in my pursuit of beauty and asked, “How many sunrises do you need?”
The first thing that came to mind was the response of early wilderness advocate Bob Marshall when he was asked how many wilderness areas we need. His reply? “How many Brahms Symphonies do we need?”
Like many of us, I live most often under the delusion of the infinite, thinking there will always be another trip, another chance to spend time with a friend, another display of northern lights, another sunrise. But, let’s do some math.
The average lifespan of an American male is 77 years. That translates to 28,105 sunrises. Truthfully, the beauty of sunrise was lost on me early in life as it often is on the young, teens sleeping until the crack of noon, twenty-somethings in the throws of new jobs and starting families. So it may be fair to say that true sunrise appreciation begins for many of us around 30 years old. If so, we have already squandered 10,950 of our allotted dawns.
With just 17,155 left, we lose even more opportunities to the fact that most of us work five days a week and see the sunrise only through the blurry eyes of an early morning commute if at all. While we may see a few during our two weeks off a year for vacation and now and again on a weekend, we mostly miss or fail to fully appreciate the 12,775 sunrises that punctuate our days between our 30th birthday and the retirement age of 65.
I am 65 years old as I write this. I have watched the sunrise from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, seen it glowing pink on the tips of icebergs in Antarctica and on glaciers in Alaska so blue they seemed lit from within. I have witnessed the sun being lifted on the notes of the dawn chorus of the Amazon rainforest and rise tangled in the mists of China’s Great Wall near Beijing.
Many of those sunrises gone by still glow in my soul but the reality is that if the average lifespan is 77 years for a man, statistically I have lived through 84% of my likely allotted time on earth with a mere 16% of my sunrises (or 4,380) yet ahead of me. The rest stretch out behind me like waves already passed, beautiful but inexorably moving away to horizons I will not see again.
Of those 4,380 still before me, the sunrises I most treasure are those I hope to see among the Apostle Islands aboard the Little Dipper. But the boating season, like life itself, is short. Even allowing for the generous span of 4 months for a Lake Superior boating season, the total number of potential sunrises yet to be framed through the windshield of our boat drops to 1,440. Since, as my friend Julian Nelson once said, “The Lake is the Boss,” take 25% of those mornings likely to be unfit for sunrise boating due to fog, wind, and waves (down to1,080). Subtract another 35% for internal weather and obligations such as sick days, busy days, to-do lists, car (and boat) repairs, dental appointments and the number drops even further.
Having spent my life in words, not numbers, my math may well be suspect but the point is clear. In term of potential sunrises I might yet see from the Little Dipper, with all the subtractions of weather and work days, appointments and short boating seasons, I am looking at just 702 more sunrise opportunities on the water. That is fewer than the number of home runs Babe Ruth hit, just about the same number as the miles you would log on a straight line trip back and forth across the length of Lake Superior.
And that is if I am lucky: 702.
Brahms symphonies, I think to myself still in bed. How many Brahms symphonies, or sunrises, does the world need? How many more opportunities will you even have to listen or watch?
I don’t know the mathematical equation for those questions. But I do know this: as powerful as the pull of a warm bed may be, the finite symphony of sunrise on this one morning at least is even stronger. I toss back the covers, grab a thermos of coffee and head down to the dock.
It will still be dark as the Little Dipper pokes its bow light beyond the break wall of the Apostle Islands Marina. I will be tired but smiling, content in the knowledge that regardless of the numbers, I will be out among the islands to bear witness to the sun breaking the horizon at least one more time in this beautiful and precious life.
I may even be humming a little something from Brahms.
— Jeff Rennicke (all photographs by the author unless otherwise noted)
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Well I JUST TURNED 77 ! Not certain where this leaves me since I am a woman , but despite the time change, I am going to continue to go to bed earlier so I don’t miss the early morning light . I have a friend who has been documenting the morning and afternoon sky’s around her home in the country with a pond and posting on FB . I have been amazed and inspired to document more for myself right around my house in town . And of course when I have the pleasure of being in residence on the Great Lake .
Great photos !! To many , many more sunrises .
You're going to be an awesome 90-year-old.