The Ridge Salon 2
Abby Sinnott
Video excerpt from a reading at the Salon. Abby Sinnott and Sue Mayo.
My response to the Dawn Chorus was inspired by Phoebe Snetsinger, a 1960’s Minnesota housewife and mother, who became one of the most prolific birders of all time.
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Phoebe started birding to escape what she called the ‘drudgery of diapers and dishwater.’ In 1981, she was diagnosed with terminal melanoma and given a year to live. She decided to travel the world, trading motherhood for wild adventures, and see as many birds as she could in the time she had left. Defying expectations, she lived 17 more years and became the first person in history to document over 8000 bird species, 85% of the world’s known birds.
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I wove Phoebe’s words taken from her memoirs with my own experience of becoming a mother for the first time. The insatiable wonder of discovering my ‘baby bird,’ while confronting the weight and tether of motherhood. Phoebe’s story gave me an opening, a space to fly: What might it feel like to break free and follow my own flights of fancy?
Biography
Abby Sinnott is a London-based writer originally from Buffalo, New York. She holds a journalism degree from Ithaca College and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her poetry and prose have been published in journals, anthologies and featured in art exhibits. Abby has taught English internationally and across diverse communities, including children in Spain, people experiencing homelessness in New York and San Francisco, and incarcerated men at San Quentin State Prison through the Prison University Project. Her writing often explores female identity, motherhood and the constricts of freedom.