Wish for a Successful Year Published 2008-08-20 under creativity, culture

With the start of school around the corner, what are some of your hopes for this new school year?

I was astonished to learn that my nephew will be starting school tomorrow! It just seems so early; summer has really whizzed by. But it was not my nephew's return to the classroom that got me thinking about the coming school year.

Monday, I was taking my early morning walk with my little boy and happened upon the wishing tree project here in Pasadena. It is part of Yoko Ono's Imagine Peace project and includes about 20 trees planted in barrels and hundreds of little tags tied to the branches with wishes. Anyone can come by and write his/her wish and attached it to a tree.

There are thousands of wishes and while many are what you expect (world peace, money, etc.) there are some that really caught my eye. Here are a few:

On Monday, one particular wish captured my attention but I did not have my camera. I returned today and spent over an hour reading the wishes. You can see a slideshow of my favorites at http://tinyurl.com/pasadena-wishing-tree.

Unfortunately, I never found the tag that originally caught my attention. It read: "I wish I do well in calculus this year." I had forgotten how the end of summer and the looming start of a new school year brings out anxieties. Whether it is a particularly scary course or teacher, the start at a new school, the return of the bully, or just the book(s) you did not read over the summer, the end of August can be a time of worry.

So here is wishing all of you a wonderful and scary-free school year.

Tech Tags: digiwalks art wish pasadena wishing+tree yoko+ono imagine+peace