I have decided that we need a new holiday. To explain, I’ll start with the opening lines of a poem by William Wordsworth. The language is a little archaic, but I’m sure you’ll get the drift:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The first seven words alone are enough to inspire the image of a man (or woman) standing in a quiet room beside a chaise lounge, dramatically lifting one hand to a forehead, sighing … “The world is too much with me” … and fainting dead away.

In days of yore, when Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters ruled the writing roost, such lounges were called “fainting couches.”

Historically, there were a bunch of uses attributed to these recliners, among which were: people napping in the middle of the day without messing up their elaborately made-up beds; women fainting onto them, because their Victorian-era corsets were too tight; and as a divan for Sigmund Freud’s psychiatric patients during therapy sessions.

My favorite use for a fainting sofa or settee, though, would have been as a retreat for napping, reading a novel, or (reverting back to my original theme) … hiding under a nice, downy comforter.

A musical validation for the importance of National Hiding Under the Covers Day can be found in the lyrics for a top ten 1961Billboard hit by Shirelles, which begins:

“Mama said there'll be days like this
There'll be days like this, my mama said
(Mama said, Mama said)
Mama said there'll be days like this
There'll be days like this, my mama said

(Mama said, Mama said, hey, hey)
Don't you worry.”

That “Don’t you worry” line is redemptive, because Mama (bless her heart) is giving us permission to surrender to the overwhelmingness of the day: lick our wounds. Read comics. Drink hot tea. Sit in a garden and stare at hummingbirds sipping nectar from flowers. Take a nap. Take two naps Nap all day. Not pay our bills. Not do our exercises. Not be accountable.

Not think.

Before I leave you burrowed under the covers, here is an extract from a mellow but optimistic poem called “Rest so You May Rise” by Langston Hughes (1901-1966).

“Rest, so you may rise ▪ Not as a phoenix, all flame and fury ▪ But as a soft breath of dawn ▪ Quiet, steady, unyielding ▪ Rise, not because the world demands it ▪ But because your heart yearns to beat freely ▪ To taste the air of becoming. Rest so you may rise ▪ For the rising is yours ▪ And the day will wait for you ▪ The world will wait.”

And on that note, dear readers, I leave you to turn off your cell phones, disconnect your doorbells, cancel your lunch dates, wrap yourselves in your blankets, take the day off.

And … hide.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2025. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit: www.shellyreuben.com.