I read that the Puritans, newly arrived in New England, thought the harsh winters and scorching summers were God's punishment for some particular sin of theirs. I wonder how many seasons of despair and soul-searching it took for them to realize that the climate is just like that.

I've loved the past few days of rain. They've made me happier than I could ever be on a sunny day, brimming over with happiness, at one with the raining world.
And the curious thought occurred to me: it wouldn't be so awful to be dead if it rained like this on one's grave, one's humble mound. Partly in the banal sense, that even gray, sad things are necessary for life, partly like this:

Ninetta mia, crepare di maggio ci vuole tanto e troppo coraggio,
Ninetta bella, dritto all'inferno avrei preferito andarci d'inverno.

But largely, I think, because the wateriness of it all made the dissolution of identity seem less terrible.
Sort of the opposite of a thought that obsessed me when I was an impatient teenager: I can't falter, because I'm frozen. My frozenness makes me strong.
(Am I not still impatient? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! But the rain made me content to shrug my shoulders and stay indoors, instead of going out and devouring the world with my eyes.)

A spectacular storm the other day. I was taking the train straight across Germany, and for the last three hours of the trip lightning flashed large on the horizon every few minutes, but there was no thunder, and it didn't seem to be raining. When I arrived the lightning was still flashing, but still no thunder, and no rain. I settled down and had dinner. "When thunder does come, it'll be ear-splitting, and last minutes, to make up for these hours of silence," I thought. It was warm & people were sitting at outdoor tables. Around midnight, within the space of one minute, the wind rose and the heavens opened. People barely had time to save their drinks. I raced two blocks and got soaked. My room faced onto an airshaft, and when I opened the window the noise was so loud it was like being under a waterfall.
The next morning, a harvest of tree branches, and even a couple of trees.
(I suspect this is the sort of thing that's really not that interesting to read, but I wrote it anyway because I like remembering it — it was so dramatic.)