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Parrots' Wood
“Jonnie Fisk has that rare gift of taking an engaging personality―inquisitive, observant, sympathetic, humorous, and above all indomitable―and conveying in intact into print. Within the first few pages of her books the reader feels that he has made a new and valuable friend.” ―Robert Finch Erma Fisk, known to her friends as Jonnie, was a contented housewife until the sudden death of her husband. Mostly by accident (she claims) she became an amateur ornithologist and naturalist, winning awards as her horizons expanded to include research and birdbanding duties from Maine to Peru. On one occasion, in her early seventies, she lived alone in a remote cabin in Arizona. The Peacocks of Baboquivari was her highly acclaimed chronicle of that experience. Parrots’ Wood is a journal of another expedition, a month in Belize, Central America, spent on tropical research. While recounting her day-to-day experiences, Fisk reminisces on earlier times in her life. With honesty that brings tears as well as laughter, she writes of her life as a series of doors to be opened, and some to be shut. Irritated but undaunted by her eighty years, she continues to say yes to life’s challenges and encourages us to do so too.
244 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1985
16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 2, 2013
I picked this book up for free, never for a minute guessing what a priceless treasure I held in my hands or how deeply it would affect me. Presuming it to be Erma “Jonnie” Fisk’s account of an adventuresome month she spent banding birds in Belize in the mid-1980s it actually recounts her journey through two decades of widowhood. Jonnie used her notebook, intended for recording four weeks of data about birds sighted and banded, to scribble her deepest thoughts each day.
While in her mid-70s, Jonnie is a young at heart birding expert from the U.S. living for a month in a mix of students, some young and eager, some older and well seasoned by life. Encamped in tropical Belize, she grapples with loneliness, loss and aging in the everyday world of handling a host of birds, washing muddy laundry by hand, baking bread in an antiquated oven or shaking out her forever wet shoes in case of hidden snakes. This is not her first such trip as she frequently signs on for these adventures to distract, divert, avoid……….she’s not sure which.
She rambles through time, writing as she must’ve spoken; articulately, enthusiastically, with feeling and intelligence. While she clearly has friends far and wide, you sense that she’s distanced herself from her three grown children and their families. There’s pain there, but she leaves it unexplored. She aches for her husband twenty years deceased, wonders about her life’s purpose, whether she’s needed, where she belongs and what does it all mean. She ponders being authentic, open and honest, and wonders why we all hide behind facades and pretense. This is the river that runs deeply in her, but on the surface she is bubbly, warm, full of stories, helpful, patient and ready with a laugh.
My kids are grown and gone, I am pushing into a new decade and more often these days, while life’s deeper questions run circles in my mind, I find myself thinking of my mother at my age. Coincidentally enough she, like Jonnie, was also a bird bander. She too was lonely. Whatever anyone’s passion or pain, Jonnie’s struggles were universal and they ripple backward and forward through all humanity. Ultimately we are all human. Thank heavens for people like Jonnie, who – devil may care what people think – choose to be honest about it.
While in her mid-70s, Jonnie is a young at heart birding expert from the U.S. living for a month in a mix of students, some young and eager, some older and well seasoned by life. Encamped in tropical Belize, she grapples with loneliness, loss and aging in the everyday world of handling a host of birds, washing muddy laundry by hand, baking bread in an antiquated oven or shaking out her forever wet shoes in case of hidden snakes. This is not her first such trip as she frequently signs on for these adventures to distract, divert, avoid……….she’s not sure which.
She rambles through time, writing as she must’ve spoken; articulately, enthusiastically, with feeling and intelligence. While she clearly has friends far and wide, you sense that she’s distanced herself from her three grown children and their families. There’s pain there, but she leaves it unexplored. She aches for her husband twenty years deceased, wonders about her life’s purpose, whether she’s needed, where she belongs and what does it all mean. She ponders being authentic, open and honest, and wonders why we all hide behind facades and pretense. This is the river that runs deeply in her, but on the surface she is bubbly, warm, full of stories, helpful, patient and ready with a laugh.
My kids are grown and gone, I am pushing into a new decade and more often these days, while life’s deeper questions run circles in my mind, I find myself thinking of my mother at my age. Coincidentally enough she, like Jonnie, was also a bird bander. She too was lonely. Whatever anyone’s passion or pain, Jonnie’s struggles were universal and they ripple backward and forward through all humanity. Ultimately we are all human. Thank heavens for people like Jonnie, who – devil may care what people think – choose to be honest about it.
November 21, 2009
A memoir centered around Fisk's month-long stay in Belize, with branchings out ("digressions" would imply irrelevance) to earlier experiences, which makes an interesting story of a woman who came into her own as a widowed senior citizen. Not only recommended, but I'm looking forward to reading her other books.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews