The Wishing Tree
tells Nanucket's secret hopes
BY MARLI GUZZETTA
While many of us have said goodbye to the Tannenbaums in our living rooms, a single tree from the Nantucket Historical Association's Festival of Trees still stands in a corner of the museum, because it has come to represent not only Christmas, but also the secret hopes and dreams of Nantucket residents young and old.

Nantucket sculptor Irean Schreiber (a.k.a. Irean Olier Oakley) created The Wishing Tree, which holds almost a thousand little pieces of paper with wishes written by museum visitors from the last three months. The wishes on the tree range from the lighthearted ("I wish my braces were off!") to the heartwrenching ("Please let my husband come home in 2007.") Anyone can read what's there, and the result is like a community wishing well that spills all its secrets. Or maybe a transcript of what God hears when a shooting star crosses the Nantucket sky.

"People I've never met stop me on the street and say, 'I was so touched by your tree,'" Schreiber said.

Schreiber normally works in clay and bronze, but she designed the Wishing Tree to be simple, delicate and interactive. Anchored to the ceiling, several lines are stretched taut to the floor in a conical, Christmas tree shape - and on its vertical limbs are tied small pieces of white paper - about the size and shape of fortunes from a fortune cookie - bearing the handwriting of hundreds of visitors who took a moment to follow the prompt that Schreiber had set for them. "What is your wish?"

Schreiber also asked wishers to write their wishes into a guestbook; currently, the penmanship of children and adults fills over 30 pages. Wishes have been written in Spanish and English. Words like "Patriots," "Nintendo," "diamond," "PS3," "iPod" and "white Christmas" make a few appearances, but not nearly as many as "health," "prosperity," "world peace," "success," "happiness" and "love."

Most are only a sentence long - humble in their brevity even as they state intimate, grand hopes.

Almost all of them are anonymous, though some wishes were made on the behalf of specific Nantucketers, normally those battling an illness.

Schreiber called the outcome "spiritual, engaging and thought-provoking."

Irean Schreiber and her Wishing Tree.

The inspiration for the Wishing Tree began for Schreiber on a vacation in Japan, where visitors to Japanese temples wrote their wishes onto similar pieces of paper and tied them to the branches of trees outside of the temples.

"The idea is that if you write a wish, and other people read your wish, each time that wish is read, it gives it more power," Schreiber said. "So I thought it would be interesting to try that here."

The tree became so popular that museum visitors were standing in line to write their wishes; Schreiber had to add ribbons.

The heart of the Wishing Tree's structure is a column of suspended origami peace cranes, kind of like a strand of DNA from the origami peace crane tree Schreiber created for the Festival last year.

According to Japanese lore, a person is granted one wish once they create (or collect) 1,000 origami cranes, which symbolize peace. This year, Schreiber included one blue crane, in honor of her late mother, a yellow crane for all of the troops overseas, a pink one for breast cancer and a green tree for Mother Earth.

Unsure if the idea of sharing wishes would take off, Schreiber, who works with her husband at his orthodontic practice, also created an inner tree of wishes she gathered herself. "I got wishes from patients, friends, people on the boats - anybody I saw. And out of all the people that I asked, only two people said they didn't want to do it."

And some of wishes have come true. One of Schreiber's neighbors, for example, made a wish to sell her business, and two days later, she did.

"I wanted people to think of the holidays in terms of their hopes and wishes for a better life and a better world," Schreiber said. "I wanted them to tap into that sense of the best possible outcome of their dreams."

The NHA didn't take The Wishing Tree down at the end of the Festival, because visitors have continued to leave their wishes. The NHA isn't yet sure what it is going to do with the Wishing Tree and its corresponding logbook of wishes. (If you have a suggestion, you can contact Peter Greenhalgh at 228-1894, ext. 115.)

In the meantime, you can still see The Wishing Tree, or add to it, at the NHA. It's worth the trip. The Wishing Tree is proof that your friends and neighbors are - by and large - kind and decent people. None of the wishes are for anything negative. None are spiteful. They are in many ways a testament to our similarities. The great majority of these wishes would be beneficial to anyone in having them granted or in granting them for others. A hearty number could be used by anyone as a checklist to a better life. For instance, just think how your February would be altered if you arranged an adventure for yourself, donated money to hungry children, gave a nice surprise to someone who's had a string of bad ones and called your grandmother

more often? I

Some of Nantucket's wishes. (* Wishes written in children's handwriting are starred.)

+ "I wish to write a book more famous than Harry Potter."

+ "I wish that all the animals almost extinct will come back fuller than ever."*

+ "I wish for life to stop sending me nasty surprises."

+ "I wish that I lived with my mom and had a better relationship with her."

+ "I wish for an adventure!"

+ "I wish that my brother can come home for Christmas."*

+ "I wish my parents never fought."*

+ "I wish that my grandkids would call more often."

+ "Bountiful scallops."

+ "I wish I had a dog that got along with cats."*

I WISH...

+ "We wish for a healthy baby girl."

+ "I wish I had more time!"

+ "I wish for food to make it to the mouth of every hungry child."

+ "I wish I found a treasure."*

+ "I wish my hair would grow back. I wish for perfect health for my family!"

+ "I wish to come back and have more fun than this time."*

+ "I wish for peace in the Middle East."

+ "I wish to see my brother again."

+ "A better year for me and my sister."*

+ "I wish for Mom to look after my sisters and me." + "I wish for my children always to be near."

+ "I wish that the slow boat went faster!!"

+ "A more tolerant world."

+ "I wish that my band was sucksesfel."*

+ "I wish my mom would not sing in public."*

+ "I wish I could help poorer people than myself."

+ "I wish I was a millionaire!"

+ "I wish that no animal would ever me mistreated and always have a home."*

+ "I wish to run the 2008 Boston Marathon!"

+ "I wish I could regain my balance."

+ "I wish for a cure for cancer. I wish for a cure for war." + "I wish I had a little box of candy."

+ "I wish for no more people getting shot."*

+ "I wish that my American Girl Dolls would come alive!" *

+ "May my daughter find her true love."

+ "That 31 years of love continues for another 131 years."

+ "Help for the people of Africa."

+ "I wish all bugs and rodents to stay out of my house. My cat wishes that all bugs and rodents come into the house."

+ "Harmony for all races." + "I wish for respect."*

+ "I wish to spend the rest of my days on Nantucket."