Ebenezer: A sequel of sorts to A Christmas Carol

I am pleased with how my little Christmas story has turned out and thrilled that the day has come to send my fable out into the world. Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered Ebenezer, my “sequel of sorts” to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and now it’s here. If you pre-ordered the ebook, it ought to be in your hands already, and the print editions ought to be on their way soon — famous last words.

The paperback proof arrived Wednesday, so I am able to post the obligatory selfie, and I got a notice Thursday morning that the hardcover proof is going into the mail — I’m guessing today because Thursday was the Thanksgiving holiday. For what it’s worth, that translates to about a week from order to delivery for the paperback and a little bit longer for hardcover.

As my Christmas gift to you, and in the spirit of shameless self-promotion, I will be reading the story to you on the five Fridays leading up to Christmas Day, a chapter a week. You can press the “play” button above or (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise) find the podcast on iHeart Radio and Amazon Music by searching for “Uncle Warren’s Attic.”

This is a mere novelette by word-count standards, but it’s the first fiction I’ve completed in almost a decade, and my intention is to grow as an artist from here. And I would be remiss not to say, as I do in the “About the author” blurb, that this is the first work of fiction I completed after Red’s passing, but her love infused it with life.

For that reason I am committing all of the revenue I receive from the sales of this book to what I’m dubbing the C.J. Townsend Memorial Fund. I plan to tithe all of my book income, but Ebenezer is my “tithe book,” that is to say, this particular book is the first fruit of the next phase of my life. I’m not sure how I will disperse the proceeds of this fund yet, but since Carol Jean was an artist whose chosen medium was gardening, I’m sure a significant amount will go toward projects that are green and growing.

My goal in writing Ebenezer was to rehabilitate Ebenezer Scrooge’s reputation not as he was before that fateful Christmas Eve — a silly old humbug — but as the good and generous man he was as he lived the rest of his days. Whether I’ve had some success in that attempt is now up to you. Enjoy!

Why I give thanks

“I coulda been a businessman, I was too hot-headed, Plus I never had the money, plus I kinda got arrested …”

Now that’s a first line of a song that gets your attention. “Critterland” by a singer named Willi Carlisle jumped out of the Folk Alley background stream at me Wednesday morning. By the time he finished the second verse, I had dropped everything and looked up the lyrics online.

It’s a song that takes a stand, and it’s a unique stand that makes you think, and I don’t believe I completely agree with his stand but I’m still thinking. I’m bringing it up Thanksgiving morning because of one line in the middle of the song:

I think love is a burden if it ain’t brave.

I had been trying to put into words how I could be thankful during this, which surely qualifies as the worst year of my life. For the first half of 2023, I helped my dear Red negotiate emergency rooms, then hospitalization, and then hospice. For the second half of 2023, I have been negotiating the reality of her loss, which believe it or not caught me by surprise, even though I know full well what a “hospice” is.

She was the toughest cookie I ever knew, and so I knew if anyone was going to beat a fatal disease, she would. That was my expectation up until the moment the hospice nurse told me Red was “transitioning,” and I had only 21 hours after that to revise my expectation.

“Love is a burden if it ain’t brave.” It takes bravery to commit yourself to a partnership with another human being, forsaking all other potential partners, and work on that partnership for a quarter-century, and I’ll tell you, facing the “transition” has taken every ounce of brave I can muster.

Twenty-six years is a good long time, but it would be easy to be jealous of the couples who get a half-century — my parents got almost 62 years, for example. Still, I am as sincerely thankful as I have ever been on this Thanksgiving Day.

I am thankful that Red was brave enough to commit to a partnership with a guy who had three unsuccessful partnerships behind him and was facing a second bankruptcy. She saw something in me that I’m not sure even I saw.

I am thankful for those 26 years. I’ve spent 26 years writing about her from time to time, but words fail me when I try to sum up those 26 years beyond simply saying, I am grateful.

I am thankful that after three months of trying to figure out what was wrong, and after seven weeks in the hospital first to get her strong enough and then to go through aggressive chemotherapy, we had another seven weeks in the hospice to get to know each other again and have time to say the things you hope you’ll have time to say before it’s too late.

I am thankful that Red told me what she wanted me to do in those final hours — read to her — and that I was able to deliver that for my precious love.

I am thankful for the staff at Unity Hospice, who are among the kindest, most loving and most courageous people I’ve ever met. They created a safe and gentle place for the hard journey she had to take.

I am thankful for the friends and family who have checked in to see how I am doing but gave me space to deal with these feelings in my own way. I am thankful for a daughter-in-law who I believe has been grieving almost as hard as I am, and I am thankful for Son of Red and the Sons of Son of Red, all of whom I have gotten to know in new ways.

I am thankful for the tears I am spilling as I share these words, for they are an essential part of the healing. I realize now I will never be fully healed. You’re not supposed to “get over” a love this real and deep, you just move to the next chapter. I found an appropriate plaque a few days into this new adventure, and the wise words now hang on the kitchen wall: “I trust the next chapter because I know the author.”

Most of all, I am thankful that, 26 years ago, I decided to be brave.

Early-morning musings on art and censorship

Is it “writing” when you stare at the page for a full minute, looking at the leaves the dogs sprawled on the floor, the bits of leaves they’ve tracked in from outside, and the toys, and wondering if you should be vacuuming instead of sitting with a pen grasped between your fingers?

I have Folk Alley in the background this morning. Music is an improvement over predawn silence or the litany of woes, tribulation, evil and unhappiness in the TV news.

We choose every day whether to dwell on death or to dwell on life. Both forces roam the earth in equal portions, but only life offers hope and redemption and a tomorrow.

The musicians explore beauty and the rhythms of life — sometimes they experiment with discord, but even then they are seeking patterns and beauty in odd nooks and crannies. There is an order to things, and artists shine lights on that order in new and surprising ways, and also old and familiar ways.

Art — poetry, music, imagery — is a uniquely human thing, arranging sounds and images in delightful ways to bring a smile and a surge of emotion.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry” — Oh, but I did, the purging relief of tears, the exhalation of laughter, the emotion of it all, the awe and the joy — I was hoping to bottle it for you to relive and rediscover in the times when you need it again.

And so this is art — an attempt to capture a feeling to be tapped as needed over and over, the past reassuring the future that a time came when all was well, and it can be again.

(“For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her” came across the Folk Alley feed just then, two minutes of sheer beauty and exactly the reassurance I was writing about.)

The words and music relay ancient emotions snatched from the heart of yes, reassurance, peace, and hope for a better future.

Why would someone want to remove such aspirations from anyone? Tyrants are puzzling creatures: Once they were children with innocent questions and open minds and hearts, and along the way they found answers in oppressing and leashing their neighbors.

I wonder how they reached those conclusions. I wonder if they realize they are tyrants. Don’t each of us aspire to the best in us? How do you find the best by chaining us? Only by flying free do you discover the view from the sky.