Now: I look across the sea of crumpled blankets overflowing off my mattress, the only tide which cause their movement is the stirring of my body beneath. Then: I looked across the bay, at ever changing ripples that brought a tired sigh of water onto golden sand dotted with foam before it retreats again into a dynamic abyss.

Now: I lay on a the wood deck of my apartment, encased in plastic paneled walls and caged in by the metal railing - I try to soak up as much of the sun that glides across my patio. Then: I sat unbothered, in the frays of a palms trees's shade. I watched beachgoers bound across hot sand with a surf board tucked under one arm, and I let the breeze carrying of negative ions cool my skin.

Now: I eat the same meal for the fifth time this week, a breakfast burrito with sausage I first cooked days ago and topped with easily prepared scrambled eggs. Then: I sat at a small round table in metal backed chair under awnings that canopied over the city's original farmer's market, eating crisp fries and smelling the sickly sweet swath of aroma the escapes from an ice creamery.

Now: I take late night drives to escape my suffocatingly empty apartment to find a small city hushed under a cloudy sky, the streets are empty and business lights dimmed. Then: The highways of the metropolis hummed and rattled with automobiles, we had to slowly nudge the nose of the Jeep into the lane to merge among standstill traffic that fitted together like building blocks and rolled impatiently along the asphalt.

Now: life seems more uncertain than the wallowing tide and shifting sand, more changing than the ever-evolving lines at a food vendor, and somehow slower than the Los Angeles rush-hour traffic. Then: I was helping my childhood best friend move from our Midwest state all the way to the coast of California in a week long road trip to cap off the culmination of memories we had created together. It was also a time that welled with uncertainty and unknowns.

Now, tomorrow remains in unwritten days to come. Then only lives in yesterday's memories.