Wishes sometimes feel like electric fireflies in a Mason jar.
Sometimes, I reflect on my life & all the wishes I’ve made over the years. The ones that came true. The ones that didn’t. The ones I’m glad never came true. And sadness over those ones I still remember with a kind of fondness, even those they linger over me like stars, like sparks of what could be if they weren’t so far out of reach. Wishes made when tossing coins into fountains, & wishes made only when pennies were discovered on the ground. So many wishes made over a lifetime thus far.
At a wishing fountain.
When I think of movies like “Three Coins in the Fountain,” & the magic of tossing a coin into the Trevi Fountain in Rome, or even in wishing wells in general, there remains that element of childlike hope that things fated will come to pass. Wishes come true in Italy, right? I mean, that’s a universal truth according to MGM classic movies.
Fairy tales warn of making wishes without understanding their full meaning or ramifications in one’s life. The childhood images conjured up in my head re: wishes tie to two stories, primarily. Both depict wives as greedy, shrewish termagants, which made me wonder why women became so mean? Even beyond these stories, wives & mothers often suffered a terrible fate.
From Richard Scarry’s children’s books, many of which were pivotal in my learning Mother Goose rhymes & stories.
The first story involving wishes is about a sausage getting stuck on the end of the wife’s nose, from a Swedish story source. Upon getting three wishes, the hungry wife wishes for a great big sausage, & when her husband comes home to learn of how she spent a wish, he in foolish anger spends another in wishing the sausage to be stuck to her nose. In regret re: his rash temper, he tries to unstick it but to no avail, so they must spend the last wish for its removal. Thereby, all three wishes are spend without gain.
The second story is “The Fisherman & His Wife.” Again, the wife in the story is foolish & greedy, never happy with the great gifts given her. Her husband, a fisherman, frees an enchanted fish that can grant wishes. The wife coerces the fisherman to go back, again & again, until her ever-increasing greed leads them to return to their former state of living in a hovel in poverty. This tale was one spun by Pushkin as a source, even though there are many variant forms that preceded it.
From “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish,” an illustration.
From the stories I read about wishes, not many of the wishers met positive fates. And usually women were the ones at fault. Just as we see in Greek/Roman myth with figures like Pandora, or in bible stories like that of Eve, women just have a way of destroying things by wanting to access power. How they attempt to gain power differs story to story, but it all comes down to the same theme. Women become dangerous when they aspire to more than what they have. And their fates as a result are quite terrible.
Ultimately, we all make wishes over the course of our lives. Many of them we really, really want to come true. How many dandelions were destroyed in my childhood, blown to smithereens in the name of wanting a new Trapper Keeper or a New Kid on the Block to fall in love with me. Oh yes, many embarrassing wishes were made.
Blowing on dandelions guarantees wishes come true, especially for children. Right?
As an introvert, I can catalog & reflect on those wishes I’ve made. Like Jiminy Cricket, I’d believe in wishing on stars, first ones seen or those found shooting across the night sky. What ones am I grateful for (granted or not), & what ones do I still wish will be fulfilled? What ones will time still eventually grant? Will I continue to add to the list, only to become like those unfortunate women?
What wishes have you made? Which ones do you still dream of, & which ones remain in your heart? Which ones are you all too glad remain unfulfilled? Introvert, fellow introverts, do you dream about these things, too?
Wishing well, O wishing well.