On Internal Tension and the Word "About"

"About" means "concerned with" as in "this article is about the war in Iraq." Used in this way it refers to the central point of something, its gist, its core. Whatever meaning beats at its heart.

But "about" also means "near," "close to," "approximately," as in "it was about 6:30 am when the sun rose on one side of the Bay Bridge."

And it means "all around" as in "there were flowers planted all about the castle."

On in near around at the center of. Is there any preposition that "about" does not contain?

Sometimes I feel sad and my sadness is not "about" anything. This might sound strange unless you think of moods being like the weather -- the sun does not rise "about" anything -- it just rises. Or unless you think about the other meanings of "about" -- the sun rises and casts its light all about the city.

Stop Apologizing: A Manifesto to the Women in My Life

Dear All the Women in My Life:

Please stop apologizing, at least to me. You have done nothing wrong, you are lovely: you are talented, radiant, smart. You read articles and make tarts from scratch and ride bicycles, sometimes down mountains. I admire your courage and grace and insight.

But lately, I have been troubled not only by specific acts of self-deprecation but by the persistence of the reflex-apology, especially when I am on the other end of it. Women—and I don’t just mean in general, or all women, but many women whom I personally know and regularly speak with—apologize with disturbing frequency and for the smallest of acts. Women apologize for being early, for being hungry, for being busy, for asking me questions that I am being paid by the University of California to answer for them, for being confused, for disagreeing with me or with other people, for being wrong, for being right, for being tired, for thinking something is interesting, for not having read something that is being discussed, or worked hard enough, or stayed up late enough, or cared enough, or known ahead of time what could only have been learned through experience.

Some might argue that the casually tossed off “I’m sorry” does not really literally mean that the speaker is sorry, but is instead a sentence ornament like “How are you?” or “I’m fine.” That it is akin to the placeholder “like”: a structural element devoid of independent meaning. But I disagree on both counts, since the prevalence of both ungrammatical “like” and “I’m sorry” seems symptomatic of a general tendency to qualify not only our statements but ourselves. And dismissing this as mere syntax, a grammatical tic, only reveals how deeply our self-editing instinct is embedded.

Please consider this a blanket absolution. At least as far as I am concerned you are all forgiven.

Ever,

B.