May/June 2009 This I Believe
Sign of the Times

by Sara Wiseman

The sign was loud and clear. No, not the psychic or intuitive signs I'm usually on the lookout for, but a literal physical sign, looming over Commercial Street in Salem like a billboard, its six-inch black letters spelled out just that morning.

"Shop until you drop - that's the way the world goes round,"the sign proclaimed loudly, hopefully and authoritatively as I sped past in my car.

Two miles down the road, I was still thinking about that sign, shouting out our need to spend, spend, spend to keep our economy from acting like a wounded animal slinking off to a hole to die. As I drove down the main street, nearly empty at 10:30 a.m. on a weekday, I wondered - is that sign really true?

I do know that I haven't felt like shopping lately. Sometime over the last months I've lost the itch, the urge, the addiction. Whereas I once loved to indulge in the new, the stylish, the must-have, the luster is suddenly gone. It's not that the products have lost their appeal - they just don't appeal to me. It has suddenly become clear to me that the path of the reckless consumer is not the right path anymore.

What if, I mused, instead of "Shop until you drop" that sign said, "Help until you drop"? Surely, there are a few kids, elderly, disabled and challenged who would benefit from a helpful hand more directly than from me buying new décor for my home.

In this odd, unexpected recession, we have been given a gift: a moment, a window, in which we can look at the signs all around us and add our own words: Be aware until you drop, connect until you drop, love until you drop. Nothing is random - I'm pretty sure it's a sign.

- Sara Wiseman, author of the forthcoming book Writing the Divine

www.sarawiseman.com