When you wish upon a star
Musings on wishing
My darlings,
We are in the thick of it now: resolutions, resolutions, resolutions.
And my first confession of 2025? I have never ever stuck to a new year’s resolution. Ever.
This year, I am musing on big words like success, desire & treasures, defining on my own terms what they mean to me. But all this talk of resolutions has got me thinking of another word, a word not quite as grand as “resolution”, a word some might consider as silly or childish.
That word is wish.
What a wonderful word! 4 little letters to express a complex process of desire, luck, faith and transformation. To wish is to express a deep desire for your circumstances to be changed. To wish is to ask for the impossible. Wishing requires a childlike devotion to something greater than the self and to the possibility that there is more to life that we can see and explain rationally. Wishing demands faith, unreasonable hope and belief in a future that is so radically different from the present it is almost, but not quite, impossible to fathom.
When do we stop wishing? Our childhoods are filled with prompts to wish. We send our Christmas wishes up the chimney for Father Christmas, we wish upon a star, we make a wish when we blow out candles on our birthday cake, when we pull the “wishbone” on a chicken, when we find an eyelash on our face. And yet wishing as an adult is considered a vapid pursuit that only society’s most hopeless figures might bother to undertake at all, who’d then laze around with no solid plan to see that wish through.
Here is my second confession of the year: I wish all the time. I wish upon stars, upon the moon, before I go to bed, when I pass a beautiful clothes shop. When I see the horrible state of the world, I wish, wish, wish for a better way for us all to live together. I believe that a wish marks the small beginning of big changes in a system of belief and that desire is the vessel that will take you on a trip from dream to reality. As I have posted on Instagram before:
Fuel with a spark makes a fire
Want with a promise makes a will.
Wishing, wishing, willing.
I love Disney films. In fact, my mother announced proudly to the family this Christmas that she potty-trained me in front of Beauty and the Beast. Disney films are all about transformation, and it is always through the power of love, faith, courage and desire that our heroes and heroines are transformed. Some of my favourites are the Disney films with wishes and dreamers: Cinderella, The Princess and the Frog, Aladdin. I never grew out of wishing, or singing those songs for that matter. Disney films are the only blueprint I have for my career and my shows are basically Disney films, but for grown ups.
When I wish, I see in my mind’s eye a beautiful story, for myself and for others, and for a moment I am filled with excitement, peace and clarity. The more I wish, the more I see the impossible things I want to do. There I am, clear as day, doing the inconceivably difficult thing most people would think mad to attempt.
A few years ago, I made a big wish. I wished that I could bring a small pamphlet of poems to life. I wished that the songs I had written, and sang every day in the shower, would one day find their way onto a stage.
That wish has come very, very true. That wish is Love Story, and that wish is currently a sold out show I am to perform this Tuesday.
To resolve to do something, to me, feels a little bullheaded. It’s too closed, too strict, and it limits the amount of opportunities you might be able to spot, if you are so hell-bent on doing things one way and one way only.
But to wish is to say “I know this is crazy but I believe with all my heart that this could one day come true”. It’s to say, “Universe, I desire this thing, take me there, let’s go get it, together”. Wishing is open, playful & fun. And fun, my friends, is one key element to making any dream come true. And just because I wish on things, doesn’t mean I don’t also make grueling marketing plans, budgets and strategies. You have to put the work in, you have to be realistic about your unrealistic goal. No one gets something for nothing.
Beyond wishing for things for my own life, I think that wishing can be radical on a collective scale. The state of the world is horrifying. But what if we wished for better? What if we held in our collective mind images of peace, of restored eco-systems, and societies where people care and are cared for? It sounds impossible, but without the act of wishing, we can’t even begin to see that there might be something better to come.
Take care my loves, and oh… careful what you wish for, it might just come true.
X