I was in Tarrytown NY last night enjoying a late latte at Coffee Labs and wandering around enjoying one of the nicest evenings this summer has had to offer up. Suddenly – right in front of me is this tree. It’s an ordinary tree like all the others on Main Street. It’s around 11 PM and I was tired. But there was something different about the tree…It had a bunch of paper notes hung on it like ornaments on a Christmas tree. I looked at the pieces of paper and they all had writing scribbled on them. Each note began with “I wish.” Then on the trunk of the tree was a little box which held the paper pieces and a pen – and on the box it said “Wish Tree.”
I looked at the notes and to my delight very few of them were trivial. I saw nothing like “I wish I had a nicer car” or “I wish I could afford a bigger house.” Instead many of them were wishes made on behalf of others. Truth be told, we seem to have precious little of this these days. In a world that leans more and more towards the “I’ve got mine” or “Let them eat cake” mindset – it was so refreshing to see this tree with all these wishes – many of the totally unselfish.
Although I do business in many villges in Westchster NY – Tarrytown is on of my favorite locations. Truth be told, this is one of the reasons I like Tarrytown so much. It’s vibrant – at 11 PM the streets were packed – no sleepy village feel here. They don’t roll up the streets at 6 PM. People were still dining – coming out of the Tarrytown Music Hall and walking the downtown. But it is also a community with a heart and soul of its own.
I apologize for the quality of the photos – but I didn’t have my large camera with me – these were taking from my “older” iPhone – not the newer fancy model with better pixel density.
One of the tags on the collage below in the collage states simply “I wish all these wishes could come true!” I do too!
