“Why can’t it be summer?”

My six-year-old asks me this question nearly every weekend these days. He has asked it since at least November, when we started making him wear long pants instead of the shorts he favors.

“Because it is not,” I tell him. “Be patient.”

He is not satisfied with my answer, and he harrumphs and stomps off. I don’t blame him. It’s a crappy answer, though a true one.

As I was finishing my morning cup of coffee yesterday, the kids reminded me that it was Groundhog Day. Madeline speculated on whether the cute little groundhog would see his shadow or not, and Oliver wished loudly that it would JUST BE SPRING ALREADY.

On my way into work this morning, as I walked the sidewalk path from the parking garage to the hospital, I heard the leaves in the oak trees above me rustling with activity, despite the lack of a noticeable breeze.  Birds chirped and chittered in the branches, occasionally swooping out and over to another nearby tree. The birds grew louder and more insistent as I neared the stretch of holly trees that flank either side of the sidewalk in front of the main hospital doors.

I’m fairly obsessed with birds, and for reasons I can’t explain, I am compelled to identify each one that I spot. It likely comes from growing up in a house with my father and his similar obsession with naming the living creatures we encountered. We had guidebooks on trees and flowers, insects and snakes, and, of course, birds. Similar guidebooks, more modern versions of my dad’s, now rest on my office bookshelf.

These birds were greyish, with chests of burnt orange– American Robins – and they were swarming the branches of the holly trees above me, gorging themselves on the abundant tiny red berries. The robins flew from tree to tree, plucking holly berries when they landed, singing about it all the while, and making quite a fuss.

I smiled, and I stopped to watch them. I wanted to photograph them, and to record their voices, so that I could see and hear them later, when they’ve moved on to other trees, in other places.

I need you to know that the food I cook is not perfect. Those of you who have shared a meal at my table know this to be true. This post is for the rest of you.

My sauces occasionally stick to the bottom of the pan. I have been known to burn vegetables while roasting them. The Parker House rolls that I serve at Thanksgiving are store-bought, from the frozen section of the grocery, and I can never get them to rise to my satisfaction. I can’t flip a fried egg to save my life. Fish fillets looks mangled after I’ve had my way with them in the sauté pan.

At times, I am paralyzed here, completely unable to share any of my words or photographs or recipes with you, for fear that you will find this out. I went through a pretty nasty spell of this at the end of December.

There is some incredibly beautiful work online, and many of my friends — some whom I’ve met and shared meals with, and others whom I hope to meet someday — are responsible for creating it. Their words seem to flow effortlessly. Their photography, of food or people or exotic places, is powerful, with just the correct amount of light and shadow, and seemingly flawless. Their recipes make sense and seem to come together intuitively. Their lives appear full and rich…and better, somehow.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Someone famous probably said that, possibly Theodore Roosevelt, if the Internet is to be trusted. Regardless of who said it, I have found that statement to be 100% true.