“Could I live like that, I wondered. Could I live in a tiny hotel room on the beach, with just a few books and records to keep me company. Could I live in an old hotel where dark rooms rented for forty dollars a month and the paint peeled off the walls, revealing old flowery wallpaper underneath. Could I live in a tiny room where the bathroom was down the hall and small puddles of water were always on the floor. Could I live in a hotel room where tunes from the merry-go-round could be heard playing over and over again, all day, every day, even from the stairs and hallways. Could I ever live a life like that, I wondered. A life like that in an old hotel that was half-way abandoned and doomed to be torn down in a few years, a hotel whose present was a fading past. I looked out the ocean-facing window; I knew. I could feel time rolling in and out, I could feel the present vanishing into the past and then rolling back in again as the present, the way the waves of the sea kept rolling in and out and back in again. I knew. I could.”