The Hills of Iowa

What happened when I went back to Swensen 23 years later.

Last week, I shared something I wrote a decade ago about Swensen House, one of my favorite places when I was in college. Today’s column is a modified excerpt from my memoir about what happened when I took the trip back to Iowa last summer with one of my best friends to visit six of my former homes, all in Iowa.

The Hills of Iowa

Out of nowhere, one day when I was in my 30s, I remembered that juniper bushes exist, the way I recalled the word “poppy,” trying it on as it sprang into my mouth when I first saw the orange bursting out of the ditch. “We had these bushes when I was a child,” I murmured, bending down to smell them, feel the flat roughness of the leaves, turn the hard berries over in my fingertips. The smell! How had I forgotten juniper bushes? Had they been here all along? I felt like a woman waking up from a coma to recall the Earth. 

I am standing on a railroad tie in the garden; everything is verdant and hilly and sometimes I ride on the back of a generous golden retriever, and the world is my backyard and it is just magical. I am safe, and juniper bushes are everywhere. They exist. I exist. What else had I forgotten? 

***

I was most excited to see the house with the juniper bushes, the one I lived in when I was young. It’s not like we don’t have them in Colorado, but once I lifted the sprig to my face and recalled the smell of being five years old, only Iowa juniper bushes would suffice. Iowa, air thick with humidity and groves of trees on the horizon while zipping down the flat freeway. Iowa with grass that was so much softer on my feet than the prickly native grass that caused my babies’ feet to recoil and lift, like the Wicked Witch of the East’s when the ruby slippers disappeared. 

I had to bring both my daughters with me for the first leg; when I’d originally planned this trip, I did not realize I would be a single parent this summer. We made it fun by caravanning—my best friend and I in one vehicle, my children over an hour behind us in my parents’ minivan, hitting every rest stop available, adhering to my father’s motto to “Never miss an opportunity to use the bathroom!”

We texted my parents when we arrived, certain they were on our heels, and laughed hysterically when my daughter texted to confirm that yes, it would be an entire hour until they arrived, because, Bruh, they had stopped to pee like a hundred times. 

I didn’t exhale until both of my children were out of our hotel room and we opened two of the bougie canned cocktails I’d brought along. We took a selfie of us “cheersing” with our aesthetically pleasing Two Chicks vodka cucumber beverages, posted it on Instagram, and collapsed on our hotel beds with relief. We were finally free to be ourselves, to be together. 

Tyra would always feel like home to me. Once, when we were as far from home as either of us would ever be—Germany—we woke up in a loft bedroom, wood beams inches from our faces, and locked eyes, our twin beds feet away from one another, our bodies buried under piles of down comforters. Neither of us had ever felt so comfortable, so safe and cozy. Perhaps we haven’t since. 

We stayed up late, analyzed each other’s text messages, listened in on each other’s phone conversations while muffling our laughter with hotel pillows. We fell asleep and woke up as close, physically and emotionally, as we were during college, like we did that spring morning on our European choir tour. 

Secrets were whispered and kept, and we sang along to the 16-hour Tyra and Steph road trip playlist. When we pulled into town, I felt like I had never left. I was fearless again, and powerful. 

We didn’t have much time before meeting up with our former roommates for dinner, so we hastily checked into our second hotel of the road trip and then drove to Swensen. It was like mecca for all our college memories, where we last left our most vibrant selves. We snapped a few selfies, but again, it wasn’t enough. We wanted more.

Before our dinner, we hit two more homes—second story apartments that are literally next door to each other. We cringed when parking next to the one we lived in together—it looked as though it may actually crumble to the ground at any moment, and the astroturf on the stairs has clearly seen better decades. I stood on the steps, remembering the dog that was perpetually leashed outside by our garage. One brown eye and one blue, he was named Bud—surely I didn’t invent that banal name?—and I used to daydream about kidnapping him because he was so badly neglected. 

I boldly ascended the wooden steps of my first ever apartment, the one Martha and I shared the summer and fall I turned 20. I remembered smoking cigarettes on those steps, bats flying overhead. I could envision the Jehovah’s Witnesses who lived next door, two young men who mercifully left us alone; I remembered the welcome sight of my boyfriend’s beat up Honda in the parking lot when he drove from Milwaukee for a weekend. I remembered jumping into the arms of my high school boyfriend when he paid me a visit, two years after we broke up, having driven all night and into the dawn. I remembered the smell of the Herbal Essences shampoo I used, and the cheerful fish shower curtain we bought. 

I wanted to climb into my old twin bed, put my arms around my old self, tell her she was magnificent and brave and strong. I wanted to walk down the alley with my friend, passing a joint back and forth. I wanted to dance in the kitchen to Like a Prayer, wondering if I would ever feel so fully alive ever again. 

The next day we drove to campus to walk around. We snuck into the music building, grabbing the door as a janitor left after having tried all the others and finding them locked. Goddammit, we were home. It smelled the same. It felt the same. It was real; it had happened. We had sung together in this room, cried in this hallway, left through this back door to get into our friend’s car to drive to Cedar Falls. Here in this stairwell I ended a friendship because she had betrayed me.

Here is where we greeted people after our recital; that’s the corner where he used to play with my hair, per my greedy demands. The practice rooms are the same, begging for students to sneak in together and put their hands all over each other. 

It is the Chapel that brings me down. My eyes instantly fill with tears upon entering, although I couldn’t tell you why. The sameness of the colors and scent and energy and quiet is comforting beyond words. Here is where I sat when I couldn’t perform at the final concert; I had mono and couldn’t sing. It is all muted grays and blues and clean linen and natural light and holiness. I had envisioned at least two different wedding scenarios that would take place in this space. The relief of that comforting outcome had anchored me to the earth, some unknown part at work behind the scenes, planning out my future. 

We walk back to Swensen, exclaiming over the decaying landscape. “Look,” we point out gleefully. “What a shithole! Look at all these rocks and weeds! They haven’t maintained the common area since we graduated! Look at the new building next door that’s all bougie and European looking and here’s Swensen. I bet the carpet is still the same,” I snort. We shudder because, let’s be honest, that carpet has seen some shit. “I wonder if the bad kids still live here,” I ponder. Right on cue, two security guards in a golf cart drive up. “Can we help you find something? Are you guys lost?” Instantly, recognizing my target demographic of 30-40-year-old men, I allow the charm to flow freely. 

“Oh my gosh, we used to live here!” I exclaim, “and we haven’t been here in years, and we’re back because I’m actually writing a book about visiting every place I used to live, and we would love to go inside, like, we would die to go inside, is there any way you could let us walk around inside for like a minute?” I plead, batting my metaphorical eyelashes and maybe my real ones, too. 

Of course they let us in. Their payment was the opportunity to eavesdrop on conversations about that one birthday and what happened in the bunk bed, and remember, right here, in this actual shower, and this was your bathroom, and what about that one time downstairs? The laundry room, you remember, of course? It is almost tragic—how did we forget this, let go of all this? There’s so much that we didn’t see.

He helped us with Counterpoint here in the common room; we didn’t understand it and cheating was the only option. Then there was that time I got busted with my Solo cup of jungle juice in the hallway, as I tried to walk from their room back upstairs, and the security guard was in the hallway, and I got the party broken up and then cried to that guy—why did everyone want to sleep with him, anyway? Thank God I never did.

We don’t want to leave. While I’m still in full-on charisma mode, we snap pictures outside the local bar that was walking distance from campus, and learn that the man with the ladder changing the sign is actually Joe of Joe’s. I gawk as though glimpsing a celebrity and ask if we can take a selfie with him. He does one better: “Here, stand on the ladder, climb on up,” he coaxes me, and I charmingly oblige, taking his hand, hiking up my red dress and beaming at him. It’s one for the books. 

We eat at the restaurant where we used to order sausage and mushroom pizza, and Tyra orders one. Disappointingly gluten free, my only options are a bunless burger and a salad. I wish I could order the pizza and a cheap beer and slide down a wormhole into my 21-year-old body. 

My best friend and I fall back into the soothing rhythm we always had, allowing each other to be the gravity that pulls us to the earth. Together we are Steph and Tyra, we are strong, invincible, let the haters hate us together. If we are both deviant, inappropriate, and make questionable decisions, come what may, as long as we have one another’s approval and affection. Those ruled by the responsible, good Front Yard can gaze into our Effortlessly Cool Backyard gaze, unwavering in our worth because we have each other.

XOXO,
Steph

• There are TWO Listen To Your Mother shows coming up! Next Wednesday, April 3rd is LTYM Boulder Comedy Night, featuring a hilarious lineup of moms. I’ll be doing standup with some of my absolute favorite female comics. Grab tickets here.

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