Last Friday, I went to NYC’s Museum of Modern Art for a story I was writing about an artist whose goal it is to draw Every Person In New York. (By the way, you don’t have to live in NYC to be part of the project — as long as you’re in the city when he draws you, it counts.)

When I was done with the interview, I spent some time exploring the museum. Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree had arrived a few weeks before (and will be here until the fall), but I hadn’t seen it yet. The idea behind it is simple enough: people write down on tags, hang them up and then when the tree gets full they’re all taken down so more people can put up wishes. Yoko Ono has done this project in cities all over the world. Right now there are even some Wish Trees in Washington, DC.

The Wish Tree is part of Yoko Ono’s larger Imagine Peace initiative. I was expecting that most of the wishes would have to do with peace or lofty goals, but I was intrigued to see that most of the wishes were much simpler than that and many of them seemed attainable. In fact, it sort of reminded me of Steve Martin’s famous Christmas Wish monologue on Saturday Night Live. You can see some of the wishes below…