wish list

Here is a shiny copper penny to toss into the deepest parts of a mossy well.

Here is a lost cat whisker, tiny flexible fairy wand for your mind-wrinkled hopes.

Here is a flickering meteor, that smudge of stardust on the night sky.

Here is a wishbone, an eyelash, the season's first bluejay----





Make a wish.






But not that kind of wish.





Wish for the impossible, the improbable, the unlikely. Wish for:






. A hazelnut orchard, a quiet day, a thick blanket--- and being 8-years-old with nothing to worry about.



. Waking up to two fuzzy purring cats when I was 27 and could sleep in until noon on a Saturday.




. The time and space to do the deep-reading I did as a 12-year-old. Laying on my parents' bed, sitting at the brown kitchen table, basking in the circle of light in our family room.



. Books culled from this source. And the fresh mind of a 10-year-old, reading A Wrinkle in Time for the first time.


. My sixteen-year-old hips.


. An entire night to enjoy the feeling of Chip's skin beneath my fingertips (this, from days early in our marriage when our biggest worry was what movie to see on Saturday afternoon and making sure we weren't late to work).


. Just a few minutes with an Alice just hours old, her milk-soft breath on my face.


. This is what I'm wishing for: a pause button for life's brightest moments, the ability to go back to a memory in feeling and sense and everything that matters. The recollection kept so shiny you can see your face reflected in the surface.






What do you wish for?