Summer has come to the North Country with a vengeance. Increasing humid days in the 80s with humid nights in the 60s.

Growing up as I did the semi-arid West, humidity is something I have never really been able to make peace with. In my mind, you should always be able to step into a shadow and cool off a bit.

I have written here this past month a few times about the wordless desert I have found myself in of late. Is it another part of the grieving process I am going through? Is it something else altogether?

I have found myself leaning into three things I love: Baseball, Jazz, and Fly Fishing. While I have not been far from Baseball ever for very long, the latter two have been out of my life for some time now, until recently.

All three could be called, “Arts of Failure”:

• Baseball hitters fail seven times out of ten and become stars.
• Fly fishers spend long stretches catching nothing.
• Jazz musicians build entire solos around “wrong” notes, recovery, and risk.

They are pursuits where failure is not the opposite of mastery — it is part of mastery.

As I grow older I realize that Baseball, Fly Fishing, and Jazz also require a specific kind of temperament. So while people who need constant measurable success generally struggle with all three, people who enjoy process can live inside them comfortably.

Blessed or cursed by birth—I know not which—apparently I fall into the latter category.