Breathless

In nature, some moments scare us, some teach us, and some simply take our breath away

ONE

You lift your eyes and it is there. Just that fast, as if it has materialized in full form from the shadows on the forest floor.

Bear

The sight of a bear in the wild quickens you. What seconds ago had been only another quiet summer day in the islands will become a moment that will burn in your memory for the rest of your life. You will find yourself remembering things — the names of flowers, the color of the sky at that moment, the way the lake surf seemed like something breathing - that otherwise may have gone unnoticed. You will remember the tilt of its head, the way its coat seemed more than simply black but the absence of light, like a hole in the forest.

And then the eyes: the way they locked on to your movement and held you with a look that made no apologies, had no fear. You felt a shiver, like a cold wind held in that stare. The moment stretched until it seemed it would snap.

And it is not until long after it has just as quickly vanished back into the shadows that you will notice that your heart is still racing and your fists are still clenched. Only then do you remember to breathe.

TWO

“Storm coming!” The well-meaning paddler cups his hands around his mouth, shouting across the water at me as he leads his party back to shore. “I know,” I whisper to myself. That is the whole reason I am out here. I wave, smile, and keep on paddling.

It may seem strange to be paddling into a storm while others are paddling away from it but I am taking a chance. Often during the hot summer months (this is in July) I’ve seen the gnarled fists of thunderstorms barreling down the north shore of Minnesota looking as though they are going to smack straight into the Apostle Islands. Yet, when these storms, fueled by the day’s heat rising up off the land, hit the cold water of the lake, they often stop, dissipate, or stay over the land only to grumble from afar.

I am taking a chance that is what will happen this time.

And it does, mostly. I reach the Mawikwe Bay sea caves just as they are bathed in the kind of light that Luminist painters dream of - each cloud silver-rimmed, the water as dark as outer space — and watch the lightning-shot storm growl and roil over the north shore, pausing at the water’s edge, hesitant it seems to cross. To see a storm at what seems like a safe distance is to exist on the fringes of an almost unfathomable force, a peek into the abyss.

Until the wind shifts. The storm clouds break the corral of the shoreline and suddenly sweep across the lake in a stampede. I turn my bow back towards the landing and paddle hard, racing the storm, heart pounding, muscles aching, breathing like gusts of storm wind.

The bow of my kayak arrows into the shoreline beach just as the gates of the clouds spring open behind me. I flip the kayak up far above the wave line and leave it there. Swept on the wind, I run to the car, jump inside, slam the door seconds ahead of the deluge. Rain and hail ricochet off the hood like shrapnel. I sit in safety, shivering, smiling, struggling to catch my breath.

THREE

Three a.m. Pitch dark as I ease the swim ladder over the side of the Little Dipper anchored in a nameless cove. No, not “pitch dark.” There is a faint blush of color on the eastern horizon, more the hope of daybreak than dawn itself. Overhead the stars are still sharp as chips of diamonds. All around me, the water is dark, rising and falling like the breath of someone sleeping.

I hesitate, running through my mental checklist for the hundredth time: wetsuit, helmet, solid shoes, waterproof camera case, lifejacket, headlamp. Charged camera batteries: check. SD card: check. It is just a mental game really. I know I have everything but going through the list is a kind of rosary, something to run through the fingers of my mind to keep the demons at bay before slipping alone into the black water.

I feel the first claw of fear rising in the back of my throat, lowering myself slowly into that water before my resolve fades. There is that jolt, that familiar sting of cold that snatches your breath away. I drift a few minutes to slow things down and let my breathing settle. It is barely 3 a.m. I am treading water alone in the predawn darkness of a lake so large its outline is visible from space.

The first few strokes, while the Little Dipper with the one white eye of its anchor light recedes behind and the cave entrance still looms almost invisibly ahead, feel as though I am swimming in space - the velvety blackness of the water, the silence, nothing below but darkness, nothing above but a few faint stars like drops of water splashed on the sky. I feel … suspended, in water, literally, but also in time and space. I am everyone, and no one. I am nowhere, and everywhere. Swim. Breathe. Swim.

Only slowly does the cave I am aiming for materialize out of the darkness ahead of me. My feet touch the sandstone shelf with a sense of relief and I stoop to move deeper inside the cave. With each step I feel the damp coolness of the air envelope me and realize that even though it is summer, in the beam of my headlamp I can see my own breath. I snap the headlamp off and settle in to wait for the first warming rays of sunrise that I hope will light this cave like a diamond.

Alone, in the dark waiting, watching. Breathing in the growing light.

— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted)

Tell me in the comments what moments in nature have left you “Breathless.”