Close your eyes and make a wish.

It's a saying usually uttered at birthdays when a cake comes out covered in burning candles.

Maybe the edge of a wishing well or as a kid when you found a dandelion and would blow

all the little bits into the wind.

Nicole Helperen's big wish was for a place she could call home.

When I was a kid, I moved 12 times before I went to college.

It was so jealous of people who could grow up in the same space.

Now, as an adult, she's put down serious roots in the form of a tree that's become a city-wide symbol.

I'm Duluthurus and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible and wondrous places.

Today we're going to Portland, Oregon to visit a tree that instead of leaves

holds thousands upon thousands of hopes and dreams.

And we talk with Nicole, whose idea inspired an entire city to write them down.

More after this.

Nicole lived all over Southern California, traveling from West L.A. to Long Beach to Cerritos.

Attending college in Berkeley, California gave her a few years of staying put.

But it wasn't until later that her childhood wish came true.

I came to Portland for a weekend for a wedding and I just fell in love and decided that I was going to live here.

And shortly after, I moved here kind of on a whim.

That was in 2001.

Nicole bought a house, got married, became a mom.

She got a dog and planted a garden in the front yard, which was already home to a large chestnut tree.

It was really strong and sturdy tree with a trunk that you couldn't quite wrap your arms around.

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