Celebrate American Vastness, in All Its Glory

Growing up in southeastern Massachusetts, I sometimes went to the beach with my parents. I would stand on the shore and feel as if I were perched on the edge of the world. The waves burst on the sand in front of me, and the heaving blue of the ocean reached out into the distance until it met the sky.

To stand there with the sand caking my feet helped drive home the sense of America as on the edge of possibility. While we strolled amid seagrass and shell fragments, the vastness awaited.