bit by bit with pieces

How do I make my own magic? The path is not as clear as it once was: easy, questioned but with curiosity not trepidation. When did I become where I am today? And I do not mean who. 

Who feels hidden. A we among a me. A multitude within one body, a mind racing. I can feel joy and then I feel emptiness. I wonder at strangers whispering and smiling to each other on the train. Am I your source of amusement? You are, in some ways, the source of mine. 

This is a labyrinth whose center we idly seek. Do we enjoy the puzzle as much as we should? We are nostalgic for the days we wish would end once we arrive on the other side. The process is the closest thing we have to being limitless. 

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”