Wishing by Susan Matthewson

“When you wish upon a star

Makes no difference who you are

Anything your heart desires

Will come to you…” *    

I am a dreamer,

A chaser of rainbows,

A builder of castles in the air,

A wool gatherer,

A baker of pie in the sky,

A smoker of pipe dreams,

A wisher on a star.

I have a hankering

For the fantastic and the fanciful.

As a child I wore my mother out

With my wishing and wanting.

I wished I was Cinderalla.

I wished I was Sleeping Beauty.

I wished I had a pony.

I wished I had a kitten.

I wished I lived in a castle.

I wished I could fly to the stars.

When mom took me to see The Nutcracker ballet

I replaced Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty

With the Sugar Plum Fairy.

My heart’s desire was to be a ballerina.

I wanted to plié and pirouette

Like the Sugar Plum Fairy in a sparkly pink tutu

Across a fantasyland stage of twinkling lights,

Surrounded by a bevy of ballerina flowers

Wearing soft pink clouds of net and sequins, 

Wafting like petals on the lilt of a breeze

As the music soared up into the ceiling rafters.

Actually, what I really wanted

Was that sparkly pink tutu

And a pair of pink satin toe shoes.

I believed the tutu and toe shoes

Would turn me into a ballerina,

A Terpsichorean vision in pink.

But mom knew better.

She quoted that old saw:

“If wishes were horses,

Then beggars would ride.”

Her message was clear:

Wishing gets you nothing;

Work for what you want.

Sometimes, she should have added,

Sometimes it gets you what you want.

Sometimes wishing paves the way—

After all, mom bought me that pink tutu

With pink ballet slippers to match.

And I didn’t do a lick of work for it.

I learned to work, eventually.

Pink tutus and satin toe shoes

Don’t come cheap and

Moms aren’t always around to provide.

But I remain a dreamer and a wisher.

You still can find me off on a chase,

Sometimes after a wild goose,

Sometimes after a rainbow,

Searching for a pot of gold.

Look out your window one night.

You may see me swinging on a star—

Twinkling amid the moonbeams

In my pink tutu and satin toe shoes.

(*Song Title: "When You Wish Upon A Star"  written by Harline and Washington from the Disney film Pinocchio).