On Sunday, as we were preparing to leave for a visit to Kyoto, the wind picked up and the sunny sky turned steel, whitecaps rose on the Lake and silver scarves of rain were visible against the far yellow of the overlake sky; then came a mountain-dwarfing swollen-chested black cloud, slowly striding over the crest of the peaks on twisted stilts of light; the air turned white and filled with sound; it was wondrous to behold all this from so far away as the roiling demon marched toward us with all the dark confidence of nature until the world was a whirl of leaves and stabs of light and shocks of sound and vistas of gray air filled with spikes of wet that made us more alive than ever.
I didn't want to leave. What has a city to offer, even the fading beauty of Kyoto, in comparison to such glories? What food there is in a lightning stroke, what society in the rain!