I’m in a large room surrounded by people I recognize on occasion but don’t actually know. It’s nice, I suppose. I have personal space. Time to reflect. The potential for growth. Free reign to write.

Still the churning in my gut won’t stop. Knowing that everything has changed won’t stop. No matter where I am. No matter.

“The world is too much with us” they say … but this isn’t really the truth I know. I know a truth where we keep to ourselves. Hide our love. Turn away from possibility. Turn away from anything that has the potential to hurt us — and there is plenty of that now. More than plenty.

Passing glances, gazing at floors, spending time in malls because no one knows us there and distance has become what we seek most. Need most.

These days I’ve seen women fleeing from a country they’ve loved and nurtured and believed in — often through their entire lives. And we all know why — because the alternative is a wicked loss of women’s rights that will last a minimum of four years.

On the male side, yesterday a man went ballistic because he wasn’t allowed to spend forty-five minutes chatting up a stunned young girl. I haven’t seen a single person who doesn’t seem antsy.

Is this our world now? Standing just outside the door until the preschool bell rings and we gasp to see our children safe and sound? Keeping my head down because a local man keeps his eye on my every move? Living with women because we think we’ll be safer? Know we’ll be safer?

Is this our world now?

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Note: The World is Too Much With Us Now by William Wordsworth, 1807, has been slightly edited to fit present times.