P.S.
September 15, 2020
There’s something unsettling about sleeping in a hotel. Maybe it’s the clicking of the air conditioner, which hums in a rhythm unfamiliar and strange, then conjures you from sleep at 1:30 a.m. Or maybe it’s the car horns and sirens blaring in the distance, raising questions in the minds of those who, with blurry vision and heavy limbs, wish they were already asleep. What’s happening out there? Won’t it calm down? Will it ever?
It seems that in January, we walked into the
July 03, 2020
When I look back at my time with the Women’s Center, I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude. After three years, the time seems to blur slightly. The things I do recall are fewer specific moments and more themes of constancy—unvarying inspiration, exploration, and vulnerability.
I remember, after months of feeling lost and insecure as a first year, a phone call with Mary about my application to Iris. It was supposed to be an interview, and while I can’t pinpoint exactly
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
April 20, 2020
There are two baby rabbits making a home out of a nook in the fence in my backyard. As evidenced by the pictures my dad sent our family group message, they are expert cuddlers. Their closeness makes them an intertwined blob of fur amongst leaves and grass. Lately I’ve been feeling like those bunnies.
Sometimes I just want to cuddle up into a warm spot and stay put.
I’m a textbook introvert, and someone who really values time alone. So, you can imagine that, in a lot of ways,
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
March 04, 2020
I have a tendency to think of change as something that happens to us rather than something we enact. And maybe that’s why I don’t like change—in fact, I fear it. For someone who grasps onto control with every last fiber of her anxiety-addled brain, the idea of embracing and, even worse, causing transformation does not come easily.
The fact is, we all carry the capacity to fit change into our identity. New beginnings, new journeys, new transitions—they’re all inherently a part of what
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
February 14, 2020
When I was younger, my best friend and I would beg my mom to play The Dixie Chicks’ Home album in the car, just to hear “Travelin’ Soldier”. We sat in the backseat, belting out the lyrics of a love story that traversed an entire litany of emotions in a mere 5 minutes and 43 seconds. The song felt like the embodiment of lyrical and storytelling genius. We were simply obsessed.
My obsession with a good
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
November 14, 2019
Whenever I’m in my childhood home, I’ll spend hours exploring the cabinets of old photo albums, as I indulge in a healthy serving of nostalgia. I let my fingers graze over the crinkly overlay, ruminating over who I was and what I cared about most in each portrait of my personal history. Even today, I keep meticulous track of all my pictures and their corresponding time in place, eager to hold on to moments as they exist in time. Sometimes I even get nostalgic over a time that is currently
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
October 24, 2019
I would love to say that I have my life together, that I am someone who moves through the world with a steady grasp on every obligation while also having a thriving social life and excellent time-management skills, but that would just be unequivocally false. My own life and I are simply not always on the same page, but sometimes I find that is something I have to accept rather than attempt to change. The weeks continue, papers are due, and deadlines approach—even if I would prefer to pause
Art by Kristen Hemrich
October 02, 2019
After a particularly hard day (or week, or month), I’ll buy myself something indulgent. “I deserve this,” I’ll say, as I sit down with a selection of Trader Joe’s frozen desserts or as I browse Sephora’s website. Such a transaction is easy—I feel like my actions warrant a reward. I made it through a midterm, I’m hightailing it to Juice Laundry. But I find it is much harder to conceptualize what I intrinsically deserve, just from existing and taking up space. Radical acceptance of the fact
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
September 19, 2019
Welcome back to another year of Iris! It’s almost fall, which means it’s finally the time of the year when I have things to look forward to, like celebrating all the best holidays (including my birthday) and being able to wear a jacket without accruing copious amounts of armpit sweat. The transition into autumn has always read like my favorite novel, like a slow and sweet descent into a happy ending, despite any brief plot twists thrown my way.
However, this semester I feel a
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
April 17, 2019
This is it, Iris’s last issue for the 2018-2019 school year, and we could not have been happier to have spent the last several months sharing our thoughts, ideas, and passions with the Iris readership. For many of us, the closing of this year means the closing of our chapters at both Iris and at UVA. On one hand, we all love a good transition. We love the opportunity to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. On the other hand, I’m