A few years ago I had a booth at one of those Mind Body Spirit expos in a large, coastal town, so I booked into a hotel near the seafront. I got there the day before the expo started, in the late afternoon. Later, just before the sun went down, I went for a walk along the esplanade. It was not beach weather but there were lots of people on or near the beach, many of them just sitting around, doing nothing-in-particular and mostly staring at the water. For an urban crowd, they seem unusually relaxed.