Saturday, June 7, 2008

Wish fulfillment

Around a couple of corners, up the lane and behind a falling down fence lies a whole yard of what we call 'Santa Clauses'. Were they linked to wishes in childhood, cousin to blowing out candles all in one go, shooting stars, four leaf clovers and the rest? It's a great idea for keeping kids quiet: I remember my friends and I spending hours searching through clover for the elusive leaf and rummaging about for a specially marked flower amongst the yellow "daisies", which were some kind of aggressive weed. Not that I particularly wistful or wishful child - whining was more my thing. Nor did I plan to use my wishes for good - oh, I always claimed I would wish for world peace, to fit in with the other morally hoity-toity girls, but really, my plan was to wish for a million extra wishes and then use them at my leisure. No need for such loop-holes in this backyard.

3 comments:

Bird Bath said...

Nothing wrong with stockpiling wishes! Love that photo.

Ariane said...

I used to wish to be able to do anything at all. I'm pretty sure I would have got around to imposing world peace, but I suspect being able to sing and dance was closer to the top.

And in reference to your last post, I completely understand that joy of unencumberment. I walked home from dropping kid #1 at school with no bag, phone, nothing. What a freedom!

Anonymous said...

my willow calls them "wish flowers" and i agree with her, i wish she wouldn't bring them in and blow them in the house. i used to call them clocks, the number of times you blew them was the time.

ps, i've tagged you for a meme. check my site for details :D