I Want More of Everything

I Want More of Everything

of the hours glazed with sunlight

on my daily graveyard walks,

of the cherry tomatoes splitting

with ripeness, how they are filling

every bowl. I want to remember things,

where my 12^th grade locker was, what autumn

in New York smelled like. To remember the way

the cicadas and sparrows make their summer cacophony,

how I will miss it when winter is stone-still.

I want all of my memory back, like days biking across

pine paths in Sweden, or our trip to the Copenhagen Zoo

to see the flamingo exhibit, their salmon plumage

a mirror of my daughter’s pink dress. How we watched

them stand, their ankles in the shallows. I want more flamingos

in my life. their long thin legs like the cigarettes I used

to steal to smoke beneath lemon trees, their beaks

a glowing ember, their pink the tongues of saints.

I remember wishing for my life to speed up, staring through

the leaves to an unforgiving blue. And now the days are vanishing,

the flamingos vanishing with them.

//

I’ve intended to send this poem for over a week. The irony is that there has been just too much of everything. Until all I wanted more of was space. and time. The longest day of the year today. The sun at its zenith. The cherry tomatoes in my garden basking in it. Soon enough splitting with ripeness.

There is a volunteer sunflower growing tall and determined amidst our green beans. Did a bird drop it’s seed there? I certainly didn’t plant it, I’ve honestly never been partial to them. But there is something about this one that makes me smile. How it wasn’t even wanted, stands out like a misfit, and nonetheless radiates confidence.

A bride’s mom recently pulled me aside at a wedding and explained how her daughter found me. Someone in Florida (where they live) recommended me by saying. . “She’s . . . different.”

In 5th grade I remember being called weird a lot. I was taller than all the other kids, a bookworm, and had a curious fashion sense. Part of me desperately wanted to fit in, but another part of me — already disenchanted with my small rural town —decided to just own it. To embrace the weird. And I think that is what makes me smile when I see this sunflower sticking out like a sore thumb amidst all those green beans.

Thank you mystery Floridian for reminding me that yes, I am different. My photography, like me, is not for everyone. And thank you mystery sunflower for reminding me that this is no reason to hunch down and pretend to be a bean.

On my birthday, I began a 100 day creative challenge. Make one Polaroid every day of something that strikes me as beautiful. Some days, it’s easy. Some days it’s not. But every day it forces me to go for a walk, and pay attention. Or pull over on my way to a wedding and take two minutes to appreciate the Appalachian mountains after a rainstorm.

“This old, old world takes my breath away at least once every day. And that, is reason enough to keep breathing.”

- Barbara Kingsolver

for more of Meghan’s award winning poetry - Meghan Sterling

for more of my photography - Eliza Bell Photography