Wishing

I'm filled with ease, contentment and joy this morning as I slowly wake and bask in the gradual blooming of  another summer day.  It's similar to a memory I have from my youth.  The morning alarm clock was silenced, the rush to get to the bus stop abandoned for three blissful months.  I'd wake to the sound of my parents' getting-ready-for-work routine, but wait until the house was quiet before getting out of bed, greeting the endless hours of possibility.  I'd lounge, read, talk on the phone before pedaling my bike to the local swim club to hang out with my friends.   Over the  years, I've longed for that memory to seep from the past into the present.  A seemingly simple wish, yet it would mean the chaos and stress from my hectic schedule no longer existed.  I wasn't wishing for a vacation, for life to be put on hold.  I was wishing for a change.  I'm reminded of this while reading Nicole Oxenhandler's THE WISHING YEAR, a memoir chronicling her deliberate attempt to make three very different wishes come true -- the wish for a house, the wish for a new love, and the wish for spiritual healing.  She approached her journey with an equal mix of skepticism and hope.  As her wishes started to manifest she wondered if it was due to her actions, like putting her wish list under her pillow or viewing properties that were for sale, or if the shift was completely random.   Researching her subject matter she found there is indeed a power to the ancient art of wishing.  Energy attached to a wish, even in the simplest form, can result in change.  Within twelve months all of her wishes had come true.