The magic faraway tree

I meant to blog this last night, but was just too tired and too low on battery.



This is the tree of wishes. It's up in the Green Fields (where else?) and it's possibly the most beautiful thing I've seen. Basically, it's a structure of some kind - possibly metal, possibly wood, possibly... look, what do I look like, a structure genius?

Either way, over the course of the festival, people have been writing their wishes onto a piece of paper and fixing it to the tree. Reading what's written there is amazing - one in childish handwriting wishing their teddy was alive, one in grown-up writing begging for the strength to come out of the closet, others wishing happiness for their friends and family. Some are funny, some are heart wrenching, some are self-centred and some are sweet.

I was looking at it, and thinking that each of those pieces of paper represented a wish. Something that means the world to another human being, all written in simple words, on a piece of paper and shared with a festival full of strangers.

Amazing.  It's just so amazing what this festival brings out of people. It's amazing what you can learn, just by looking at someone's wish, knowing you'll never meet that person and yet at the same time, you know what they want out of life. So many people, so many hopes. So many hopes and dreams.

Reading some of them make you realise how lucky you are, how funny people can be, how intelligent, how sad, how full of hope we are.



All these people, from all walks of life, converging here and sharing a secret with strangers. I hope I remember how vulnerable some of them are when one of them is pressed up against me, sweating and breathing tikka masala wedges all over me when I'm in the crowd.