P52 Week 4 - Sign of the Times

A word or a phrase will often bring a lyric to mind and it’s hard for me to keep from singing. My kids can attest to this, for as they were growing up, they reacted to my frequent bursting into song with groans of, “Not again, Mom.” And so, with this week’s title for Project 52, my mind immediately chugged into gear with the strains of Petula Clark’s 1966 hit: It’s a Sign of the Times.

The assignment was to think of things we see/use routinely today that in 10 to 20 years might have changed/disappeared.

I’m not a techy or gadget kind of person and so, thinking of objects becoming obsolete is quite a creative stretch for me. I’ve used my Mr. Coffee drip coffee maker for years– might it go the way of the fifties electric percolator in a decade? Will I ever replace my simple wristwatch with a futuristic smart-watch that might monitor everything from fitness to finances to flatulence?

And then I get into imagining what really huge things I would like to see disappear in the next decades. Wouldn’t it be lovely to see the billions of dollars and the ridiculous amount of time focused on political campaigns becoming obsolete and the energy and money thus saved being channeled into prenatal and early childhood development, the arts, education, and the environment? Wouldn’t it be lovely to have most diseases become obsolete by redirecting the billions of dollars currently spent treating them towards funding healthy community and work environments that prevent these same diseases in the first place? I’m just getting warmed up…and I imagine that you, too, could add to my list of huge things you would like to see disappear in the next decades. Yes?

But then the simple lyrics of Petula’s sweet song play again in my head:

It's a sign of the times
That your love for me is getting so much stronger
It's a sign of the times
And I know that I won't have to wait much longer

You've changed a lot somehow
From the one I used to know
For when you hold me now
I feel like you never want to let me go…

I'll never understand
The way you treated me
But when I hold your hand
I know you couldn't be the way you used to be

Maybe my lucky star
At last decided to shine
Maybe somebody knows
How long I've waited to make you mine

It's a sign of the times
That you kiss me now as if you really mean it
It's a sign of the times
And a year ago I never could have seen it…..

It's a sign of the times

And I wonder. What would it be like for it to be a sign of the times that love in the world is getting stronger; that we become more genuine and communicative; that we really mean what we say? And wouldn’t it be lovely to know that we didn’t have to wait much longer for these loving signs of the times to appear?

Maybe I am a ‘Pollyanna pessimist’ as one of my friends so aptly suggested just the other day, but there is much in the world that I hope will be obsolete in twenty years. Can I do more to bring that about?