The hour I sat on Sunset Cliffs

Late March, a Tuesday evening. San Diego, Sunset Cliffs Natural Park.

I drove out alone, parked on the road, and walked to the strip of grass at the very edge of the cliffs. Found a spot and sat down to wait for the sun. The wind was warm with a small cool edge. The sun hadn't set yet — the light was scattered across the water in gold fragments. I could hear the waves hitting the rocks below.

For that hour, my head was empty for the first time in a long time.

The hour

No thinking about the next version of the product. No thinking about the bill that wasn't paid yet. No thinking about which direction to move next. No thinking about the kid's schedule tomorrow. No "you should" running in the background.

Just sitting. Wind. Ocean. The sun going down.

I realized the last time I'd felt like this was ten years ago.

Ten years ago, in Santorini

Fall 2016, on a cliff in Santorini. Same time of day. Same ocean. Same sun sliding into the water. Same emptiness in my head.

In the ten years between — jobs, moves, life bills, a marriage, a solo-build project, the household — I hadn't gotten an hour like that again.

Something that shows up once every ten years is a luxury. San Diego reminded me: these pause moments don't just arrive on their own. You have to physically walk to a specific place, sit down, and give yourself permission to be there.

I keep being drawn to cities by the sea

I'm from Dalian, a coastal city in northeastern China. I lived in Shanghai for years (also coastal). The trips that stayed with me — Santorini, coastal Norway, San Diego — all on water.

I didn't choose it consciously. Only when I listed them did I notice: I've been looking for the sea.

Maybe what I'm actually looking for is a place where I can sit on a cliff at dusk and think about nothing. The sea is only one condition — it's something big enough that your own life can't fill it, so your attention finally has somewhere to rest. In a city, you can't really unplug because every one of your mental threads is still firing. In front of the ocean, those threads shrink and quiet down.

Go to San Diego

Not for SeaWorld, not for the tourist lists. Go for that one hour at Sunset Cliffs.

You don't need to research it. Park, walk to the edge, find a spot, sit down, do nothing. Sunset itself is 20 to 30 minutes; the hour around it is all that light. When you walk back you'll be carrying something with you.

Ten years from now, that hour is what you'll remember. Not anything else.