Prompt: Write a story or poem based on a stanza, lyric, or chorus of a favorite song.

“Soft kisses on a summer’s day laughing all our cares away, just you and I.
Sweet sleepy warmth of summer nights gazing at the distant lights in the starlit sky”.
Chad and Jeremy, A Summer Song.

These lyrics take me back in time to the summer of ’63 after high school graduation. Ken had a job in the warehouse at Associated Grocers during the week. I was the stay-at-home babysitter for my nine-year-old brother; both of my parents worked. On weekends Ken and I would slip away, drive to the mountains or shore to spend the days just being together. Hours and hours alone. I know we talked the entire time, well mostly. I recently asked Ken if he remembered what we talked about. Neither of us can remember. Nothing consequential, I fear; not the Vietnam War, the economy, global cooling (yes, science said another ice age was developing), world famine, or the politics of the Kennedy administration. I was team Kennedy, he team Nixon. Somehow the hours melted away.

One standout memory was sitting on a blanket on the bluff above Deception Pass watching boats go out of Skagit Bay into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Our location part way down the bluff was sheltered from the eyes of anyone on land above us and open to the water below. At one point we were in a heavy clinging embrace when a cruiser passed through the channel. The captain blasted their very loud horn and shouted encouragement. They were so far below they were unable to see us clearly, just that we were entwined and off in our own world. We couldn’t see them, only the boat. We waved as they passed by.

That memory makes me smile each time I hear the lyrics of the song. On weekends, Ken would pick me up early in the morning and get me home late Saturday night, then repeat on Sunday. We would gaze at the starry night skies for as long as we could. We drove all over the northwest part of Washington State looking for secluded places to park and picnic, sometimes in the mountains, sometimes in the islands. It was an idyllic summer of love, very little responsibility or care, and loads of time to ourselves. We had money, Ken’s baseball signing bonus plus his job, so we could do anything; but we spent little, choosing instead to just be with each other. Those tender memories are part of the bond that has held during our sixty years together.

Thirty years after that summer, we sailed Wind Dancer, our 41′ C & C sailboat, by Deception Pass but not through it. Water depth in the narrow passage ranges from around twenty feet in places to over two hundred feet and the currents are treacherous so boats can only go through one at a time. Keeled craft are discouraged as they can be sent spinning out of control.

I wrote this poem about that summer.

Summer of ’63
I was seventeen
You were eighteen
Life ahead full of unknown currents
Unplanned and unexpected
Carefree summer of love,
Passion unbounded, undenied.
Love as deep as ocean canyons
Kisses soft as sugar froth
Melted on our lips.
Time unwound slowly
A bottomless well
Those happy days
Followed by years
Navigating life’s swollen eddies
Struggles, celebrations,
Misunderstandings, reconciliations.
The tumultuous tides of our affair
Like the sea gushing through Deception Pass
Smoothed into calm waters of well-aged love.