Solstices Now and Then

What better time than at the Summer Solstice to be reminded of the last solstice, the darkest day of the year? Stuck on my provincial Philippine island last Christmas, in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan (known as Yolanda hereabouts), without power for six weeks, I had to charge the batteries for my cellphone and tablet with a neighbor's generator (for the slight fee of twenty pesos (45 cents). In the darkest dark I've ever known, I would listen, because Christmas was looming, to the beautiful carols of John Rutter. Because I never stopped writing throughout the ordeal, but never had a chance to publish the piece I called "Anatomy of a Christmas Carol," I publish it now, belatedly.