Main Entry: sot·to vo·ce

Pronunciation: "sä-tO-'vO-chE
Function: adverb or adjective
Etymology: Italian sottovoce, literally, under the voice
1 : under the breath : in an undertone; also : in a private manner
2 : very softly -- used as a direction in music

Sunday, November 12, 2006

a time for departure


Tennessee Williams said, “There is a time in life for departure even when there is no place to go.”
It’s a slippery statement but at this juncture, I can relate in that I feel a need for departure – be it from a relationship or place – it is a departure all the same. The scary thing about departure is that you don’t know where it leads, as Williams says. You know where you were, or you think you know here you were or perhaps you did and now it has been changed, dare I say edited, revised, history rewritten? This happens: people can be conveniently revisionist when it suits, and this hurts. They will take years of a shared history and with one mark of a red-pen and a red swoop erase the whole thing as if it never happened at all. They do this as a way of saying “you never have met” (Reference Bob Dylan: “I Don’t Believe You” who tells us, “I said it’s easily done, you just pick anyone and just act you never have met….” Clearly he too had his run-ins with the type.) >>>more