This evening, it struck me like sunshine on the water. It was Christopher Cross’s “Sailing.” It would not be hyperbolic to write that I have listened to the song and the album on which it is found thousands of times. Both remain among my favorites. The industry of “Yacht Rock” has since sprung up around this ilk. I am okay with that. It is beneficial for the writers, the musicians, the ones with skin in the game. So, sail on.

But here is what put so much wind in my spiritual sails. At once, as if by a zephyr, I was back in Florida, on the boat, sailing–truly–off the coast of Bradenton and Sarasota–watching my dad and stepmom sip drinks from wide-rimmed glasses (my dad had his shirt opened, a white collar and his tanned neck, the beard of a man who had driven from Atlanta to Tampa in a black Buick on I-75, with an aim of impressing–as the other boys and I dived into white-capping waters and sized each other up, boys of adolescence, swimming among dolphins, paddling among ancient creatures, finding our ways, longing for girls whom we could not understand but only pine for, their limbs tanned and alluringly long and brown in Florida’s bay sun, the briny taste upon our red boy lips, swollen with longing for mysteries we had yet to discover and uncover). It was all there–the sun-dappled bay, the longing to matter, the discovering of the beauty and utter mystery of girls who swam nearby, the taste of brine upon one’s tongue, the white vessel as she rocked across from the city and the dolphins sliced like dim sea friends and we boys did our best Christopher Cross tenor voices and sang “Sailing” and “Ride Like the Wind” and thought we had it all figured out.

Cross’ album (this was in the day of LPs) blared. As we resurfaced, I looked to the one I longed to acknowledge me (“See how deep I went, Dad?”) and the silence spoke stronger than the seas, and the taste of brine on my sun-blistered lower lip, and my buddies swimming beside me. The waters lashed, as did my learning.