This is my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean from the mainland American coastline. Many times, I've looked in this direction, too far away from everything else to see anything but open ocean.

The beach presents an interaction between man and Earth unlike any other. Though constantly crowded with people (though today's not too bad), parallel all sorts of touristy shops and restaurants, and adorned with the occasional tacky dock, we're largely content to leave it exactly in its natural state: sand and water. There's a degree of solace to be found in standing in the path of the tide, just letting it wash over your feet, feeling the sand collapse beneath you, adjusting your weight to compensate. People have been doing this for tens of thousands of years, I'm sure, on this very spot; and, in fact, various spots all over the globe. Their descendants now gather here to do the same. Our forebears would never have met, and yet I see people of all ethnicities enjoying the exact same thing. It's human. It's natural.

And I'm kind of worried one of these seagulls is going to shit on my laptop. My friend stands ankle-deep in the foam, calling his girlfriend in New York. And we laugh at another friend, who, at 23, we've all decided resembles a "dad." A gray smog obscures things less than half a mile away. And my blog gets just a little sappier.