There was something magnificent about that storm. Although I was drenched and battered by hail, internally I felt balanced and sturdy. The past 48 hours had been a series of knocks and shocks, but I had managed to absorb them with grace and gratitude. One of the miraculous elements of thru-hiking, I suppose, is learning that you’re capable of so much more than you had imagined. The irony of this is that those revelations were not always admirable. I had learned a great deal about my own capacity for avoidance, duplicity, and selfishness.
