I wasn’t always an avid reader. I remember being in first grade and being taught from the Dick and Jane series how to read. For the life of me, even at six years old, I could not fathom how anyone could rouse any interest in “Watch Dick run” or “Look at Spot.” Apparently I did grasp the process because I never need any further help with the subject but reading was definitely not a priority.

While I do remember being taken to the library, somehow I always ended up in the children’s section with highly illustrated volumes where I could appreciate the illustrations but could not work up enough enthusiasm to actually attempt reading the stories. As far as I was concerned, reading was boring and irrelevant!

But we ended up moving and moving again and by the time I was in fourth grade, books were my close friends. My mother always said that the loss of past friends plus moving to streets where there were absolutely no children of any age, let alone my age, pushed me into reading. Maybe, she was right or maybe I just found something interesting to read. I do remember riding my bike a half mile several times a week to the local library and returning with a basketful of reading material. Our school also had a library and I took books out from there as well.

Regardless of how I came to books originally, they are now a permanent and important part of my life. While I read both fiction and non-fiction, sometimes it is hard to put down my mystery or my novel and stoke up my energies so I can fully concentrate on some serious non-fiction.

Some people love antiquing. I, however, am always on the lookout for used book sales at libraries and thrift shops. Therefore, at any time, I probably have at least six months worth of reading lying around me as well as all the used books that I have kept as being worth a second read.

While reading became a source of great pleasure for me, writing is an altogether different matter. Elementary school was full of compositions and book reports. In high school and beyond, no semester was complete without at least one research paper. And I cannot say that I ever enjoyed it! Sometimes the research was personally interesting, but, unfortunately, most times, this was not the case. Usually, writing these class requirements became just an effort to weave the material into a coherent piece and I was bored, bored, bored. While I usually did well with my assignments, I could never understand how my classmates were turning in fifty page papers when I rarely wrote a third as much! Sometimes, however, we are forced into doing something we would prefer to avoid with surprising results.

When I finished my schooling, I thought that I would never again have to write more than a letter or an e-mail ever again. However, over the years when I was a volunteer at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), I took an introductory botany course with the late, legendary Gary Lincoff. One of the requirements of the course was a weekly botanical journal, detailing plants and insects or any other natural phenomenon that we noticed. Gradually, this intense fascination with the natural world around me coalesced into the idea that I would like to share my fascination with others. The real question was, “How could I connect with an interested audience?”

We have lived in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx (NY) for most of my life. With a general involvement in community affairs, I have met many fellow Riverdalians over the years. It was my good fortune that around the time my interest in writing was surfacing (2015), that I got to know Shant Shahrigian, the then editor of the Riverdale Press. I pitched him the idea of a Nature column and he was willing to give it a try and my column, Green Scene, was born.

The early articles were about 300 words long. Gradually, the articles grew longer – first to 500 words and finally they have reached the column limit of 800 words. But even then, it happens frequently that a topic needs more than 800 words and so I have topics that have run to two or even three installments.

The Riverdale Press has had to condense its weekly paper because of the corona virus and my column has been put temporarily on hold. Although, it can be stressful to write a new column every week, I do find that I miss sharing my observations with my readers.