Here in northern New England, we hit the winter doldrums come February. Too many cold days. Too much dirty, pockmarked snow. Too much ice on the driveway. Too much time cooped up inside. The pellet stove has left a fine layer of black soot on all the windowsills, and everybody’s sick.
Recently, one of the first emails I opened at work was from a colleague who had decided to work from home because she wasn’t feeling well. When I emailed her back my hope that a day of taking it easy would keep the bug at bay, she responded that she just needed to work from the comfort of her own home.
For some reason, the image of Carina working on outcomes assessment tucked up in her cozy home brought to mind the memory of a poem I had once loved as a child. I couldn’t remember the title, just that it was by Robert Louis Stevenson and had something to do with a counterpane. The memory of how much I’d loved that poem was so vivid, I abandoned my email to search for it. I found the poem right away on poets.org: “The Land of Counterpane” by Robert Louis Stevenson.
As I read those long-forgotten lines, I was suddenly overcome with joy–not nostalgia, but pure joy. How could this be? How could a simple children’s poem make me so happy on a gray February morning at the end of yet another week of meetings and deadlines and driving home in the dark?
Quite simply, I had been transported to my own land of counterpane, which is, at its heart, the land of imagination, where I am most myself and where anything is possible.
And Now for the Nostalgia . . .
The version of “The Land of Counterpane” that my parents read to me when I was little is from A Child’s Garden of Verses, published in 1929. I would return to it again and again to lose myself in the old-fashioned illustrations and the pleasure of words that rhyme. The fact that this well-worn picture book had been my mother’s when she was little brought an added dimension to the land of imagination.
Elizabeth Gauffreau 
Lovely memories! Counterpane is such an interesting and archaic word. Just hearing the word transports me to times gone by. Yet, the sentiments are as relevant today as they were then.
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I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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I also loved that poem as a child. I learned all my nursery rhymes from a book that once belonged to my mother and aunt. I can see it on the bookshelf as I type. It is pretty much of the same era as your book, Liz. I also found it very special to have a book from mum’s childhood. I was easily able to picture her reading it as my grandparents were still living in the house she grew up in.
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How lovely that we have that in common!
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We didn’t have this version of A Child’s Garden of Verses. We had the lovely Little Golden Book edition, illustrated by by Eloise Wilkin. https://www.amazon.com/Childs-Garden-Verses-Little-Golden/dp/B006P2Y1EI Speaking of joy, I was in the doctor’s waiting room last week and I picked up a copy of an NZ publication called Poems in the Waiting Room. I smiled to find RLS’s The Cow within. It transported my thoughts away from the purpose of my visit. 🙂 🙂
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I just checked out the Poems in the Waiting Room website. I certainly hope the idea will spread to waiting rooms worldwide.
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Yes!
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This is a wonderful Post and poem. I don’t recall reading it before. The childhood play is such an important part of growing up. I remember doing it very often, similar to what is described here.
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Thank you, Dwight! I’m so glad the post prompted fond childhood memories for you. The poem was a favorite of mine.
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Yes, it did!
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