Laura Hinnenkamp
Iris Assistant Editor
Laura is a fourth year studying English and Women, Gender & Sexuality with a minor in Psychology. She believes in the value of art as a tool for social change and the power of the written word to connect us all. In her free time, Laura enjoys watching romantic comedies and laughing at astrology memes.
February 14, 2020
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
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 love story has yet to fade. Love moves us, inspires us, instructs and teaches us. Love reminds us that...
November 14, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
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 happening, already waiting for the not-so-far future when I reminisce on the days I’m experiencing now...
October 24, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
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 in my bed for the conceivable future.
In light of the insane pace and demands of the world, I...
October 02, 2019
Art by Kristen Hemrich
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 that there are things I deserve just for being myself, without doing anything to earn it, doesn’t...
September 19, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
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 tentative balance of simultaneous growth and stagnation. Maybe because it is my final year...
April 16, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
I keep a list of things I want in the notes app on my phone (right below my grocery list and right above late-night ruminations on the failures of my life). Some time ago, I would use this “want” note as a safety blanket or a calming mechanism, relishing in capitalistic promises of a shopping high in the face of immediate stressors like exams and papers. Such a dependency left me feeling pretty empty inside, so I’ve left this note in neglect, and try instead to focus on the piece of journal paper taped up beside my mirror that says, “stop feeling the need to...
March 19, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
The worst year of my life started when I walked on Grounds in the stiff August heat to move in to my first year dorm (sans AC). Red-faced, insecure, and awkward, I felt like an intruder on an intimate scene--as if I had just walked into someone else’s life and didn’t know how to leave.
I felt disconnected from my space, my room, the classrooms, the food I ate, the clothes hanging in my closet. Nothing seemed to be mine, not even my sense of self, left in the backseat of the car my parents...
February 25, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
The moment I realized I was in love for the first time floats into my memory more often than I’d like it to. It was summer in a small hometown with a boy. But more than that, there was me, frozen with overwhelming self-awareness and recognition of feeling. I had read every teen romance novel and seen every romantic comedy the world had to offer and lived with idyllic impressions of love circling my brain for years. Standing there, with the conscious thought of “you are in love” in my mind, I felt mainly discomfort. It was a very personal experience in the...
February 11, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
I completely suck at self-care. And not in a cutesy, humblebrag way or in a self-deprecating way. We just do not get along. It’s to the point where I hear someone exhort the importance of self-care along with suggestions of meditations or face masks, and I roll my eyes to the back of my skull so hard they may pop out from their sockets. My mom is probably forwarding a Tiny Buddha email to me right now, and I’m already moving it to my trash folder without reading it. When it feels like other people force certain aspects of self-care upon me, whether intentional...
November 12, 2018
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
About a year ago, I started on a journey towards building a sustainable wardrobe. I wrote a final paper for my feminist theory class on how fast fashion retailers (specifically Zara) target the “neoliberal female subject.” I felt like these clothing companies were way too prevalent in my brain, and I needed some distance from the cycle. Sometimes, that distance means shopping at sustainable brands...