When you wish upon a star

Makes no difference who you are

Anything your heart desires

Will come to you

Jiminy Cricket

Be careful what you wish for

My Mother

Ask the most rational, prosaic person you know, and odds are, even he or she at one point or another has looked up at the darkening sky and whispered, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” What’s up with that?  When did we start talking to stars?  And what do they have to do with granting wishes?  No one knows how this “superstition” began and can only trace the rhyme to the 19^th century.

There are those in our lives who tell us, “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride,” and those who tell us that if you wish hard enough, even a wooden puppet can be become a real boy. So who’s right?

In my Freshman year of high school I wished and wished that Mark Winchell would kiss me.  I thought about it day and night. He didn’t even know I existed, but I created elaborate fantasies about how we would meet, how he’d walk me home.  At this point, I’d never been kissed by anyone, let alone an upperclassman.  I prayed to God and made a deal – if Mark Winchell kissed me, I’d say the rosary every day for a month.

The very next day, out of the blue, Mark came over to my locker and asked to walk me home. We detoured off the road and went into the woods where he sat me down on a log and kissed me.  Never having been kissed before, I had no idea that sticking his tongue in my mouth was not part of your basic kiss.  Pretending sophistication, I reciprocated enthusiastically.

By coincidence, (is there such a thing?) the next day Father Cassidy continued his unit on the Seven Deadly Sins, teaching us the levels of lust: indirect venereal pleasure (like dancing with someone while fully clothed) vs. direct venereal pleasure (when skin touches skin).  I had some difficulty separating the word venereal from the word venial, decided French kissing was a minor sin and kept practicing.

But soon kissing Mark lost its thrill. Within two weeks I was done with him.  Kissing was OK, but I wanted someone I could “relate to.” So there I was, finished with my wish, but stuck with two more weeks of rosary.  Never wanting to get on the wrong side of God, I honored my bargain and determined to be more careful about how I wished next time.

Carl Sagan once said “We are star stuff.”  He would probably roll over in his rational grave if he knew that some of us are taking him literally.  Instead of just admitting the link between the hydrogen and helium in space and our own bodies, we see our wishes as quantum links between ourselves and points of light in space. Some folks even say that we literally “are stars,” that our DNA is linked with the cosmos, that we truly are George Bush Sr’s thousand points of light. So when I wish upon a star, I am connecting to some cosmic link.

Thing is, what qualifies a real wish?  Why do some wishes come true and others apparently not?  And what is the right procedure for truly wishing upon a star?  My high school lesson was that you need to be prepared for the consequences of your wish..

My youngest sister Krysia learned that the universe is literal. Whether it’s designer clothes, or a fancy car, Krysia has always wished for a life of luxury.. She was always saying, “I want to be surrounded by luxury, to go to fancy resorts, hob nob with the wealthy.”  A few years ago, she was hired to produce the Robin Leach comeback and for weeks spent grueling hours on yachts, private islands and in fancy restaurants shooting what would be Mr. Leach’s show business swan song. I don’t like to bother her at work, so never called the number of the production company till she was near the end of the assignment.  I had no idea what the title of the show was, so when the the receptionist answered, “Life of Luxury, could you hold please?”  I had to laugh.When Krysia got on the phone, I said, “Well, your wish was finally granted!”  She sighed.  “ I had the wording all wrong! I kept wishing that I could be surrounded by a life of luxury instead of wishing that I could LIVE a life of luxury.”

I once felt so stressed by all the running around I was doing trying to promote my fledgling practice.  It seemed like there was no time to breathe, even though I only had five private clients.  I groaned and said out loud, “I wish I had some time and space to breathe!”  The next day, all five clients called to cancel their appointments for the next week.

When my Father decided to try to immigrate to America, he accepted the first sponsor that offered, without ever once wondering why a middle aged, middle class woman in Chicago would want to sponsor a stranger.  When he arrived at her home, he realized that the hidden agenda would be marriage to her unpleasant daughter.  Escaping from their clutches, my father found himself in a strange netherworld of wealthy Poles trying to foist their aging daughters upon him in exchange for financial security.  He thought to himself, “My god, what am I going to do?  I can’t marry some wealthy dowager and be miserable for the rest of my life.  I’d rather marry some beautiful young girl without a thing to her name who loves me and I’d love her for the rest of my life!”  Soon after, he met my Mom.  They borrowed a friend’s truck to move her belongings to his apartment when they got married.  Unfortunately, the friend forgot to close the back of the truck and as my Mom and Dad blissfully drove through downtown Chicago, my Mom’s clothes, furniture, books and memories flew out of the truck and through the streets.  By the time they arrived at my Father’s apartment, the truck was empty.  As my mom sat crying on the truck bed, my Dad remembered his wish and realized that my mom LITERALLY had nothing to her name.  He began laughing.  My Mother, unable to find the humor in the situation, accused him of being insensitive.  But my Dad swept her up into her arms and said, “You are just what I wished for and I will love you for the rest of my life!” My Mother still does not see the humor of that event.

As the evening star appears, I can’t help reciting the verse.  Each time it brings a question, “What do I REALLY wish for?”  Sometimes the wish rings out, like a bell.  Peace on earth, my family’s happiness, a new patio, deeper understanding of myself.  From the prosaic to the cosmic.  Then there are times when I just stare up at the sky and say, “I wish to be truly myself.”  Perhaps that’s closer to what some philosophers might call a “real wish.” When I am truly myself, everything else will fall into place.  And when I’m not, I’m like a beggar wishing for a horse, not really believing it can happen to me, or like a wooden puppet who only half heartedly wishes to be real.