For one of the years I lived in New England, I lived in a little town called Hull. Hull is a little spit of land that divides Mass Bay from Quincy Bay. And it didn’t matter how stressful my day was, as I came around the curve into town, I could see the waves ebbing and flowing in. Just a reminder that the stresses of the day are trivial – no one will care about them after I’m gone.

Since then, I’ve returned to the water again and again. I need to see the infinity of the horizon – to not see land on the other side.

Today, walking along the ocean, I see a little girl running up to a flock of gulls and trying to scare them off. She’s not old enough to be in school. And she thinks it’s fun to have them fly off. But is this not a metaphor for what humans do when we develop land that is unspoiled? We tell the animals and the birds and the insects and the water that we are here now and everything must either leave or conform.

When will we learn to live with nature?