I went to the ocean because I wanted to feel small. Even though I grew up less than an hour from the coast, my family was never really one for the beach, so we only took a handful of vacations there. I spent the last four years of my life on an island and never once went swimming–the rivers that flank Manhattan reek of chemicals, and Coney Island was a seemingly endless subway ride away. But San Francisco is a place that is so tied to the sea that the slightest shifting of the earth’s crust could send the entire city sliding right into it. Yesterday I rented a car and I drove across the city, up and over Twin Peaks, through the Inner Sunset and along the southern edge of Golden Gate Park, until the road dead ended and all I could see was the ocean. I wanted to look out at its vastness and feel swallowed, the same way one might when gazing intently at the night’s sky. I’m drawn to the sea’s impermanence: nothing remains, everything shifts and erodes. I went to the ocean because I wanted to feel alive in a way that only being humbled can evoke.