On the wish site, the user types a wish into an online submission box that sends it directly to my personal email.

As soon as I see it, I immediately close my eyes and make that same wish.

I have been doing this project for a little over three years.

The user’s IP address is automatically included in the email that the server sends me. Though I didn’t intend for this feature when I built the site, I’m super grateful for it. Wishes coming from places I’ve never been to or have never heard of before. Sometimes the same wish coming from different and far apart places. Wishes written in languages I don’t know, wishes coming from my own city. Wishes from six different continents! I add each city/state/country to a growing list of locations.

On principle, I never look into the specific coordinates of the IP addresses. The identity of each user is meant to remain completely anonymous.
I am grateful whenever I hear that the site has a positive impact on someone else, though I would like to clarify that I have never been interested in trying to be any sort of genie or magician. I am much more interested in how attention and intention can get stretched across space and time, and how an experience of togetherness can get created within separation, privacy, and secrecy. 

In synchronistic moments, I receive a wish that articulates exactly what I’m experiencing at that exact moment. Words coming from somebody else but feel straight from my own head or my own heart! This has been such a gift to me. Feels like making eye contact without any eyes or even faces.  

Other times, I see a wish come in on my phone when I’m in the middle of something else: I might be busy or overwhelmed. When I read it, my attention is immediately (even if only briefly) pulled away from my self. Whenever this happens, I get reminded of something I was forgetting, which is that my own life is not so comprehensible, somehow both very big and very small.  

I’ve learned a lot from creating this and I keep learning. Thank you for participating.