Laundromat Dreams: Reflections on Iowa City
Iowa City, 2026. Just making sure I drink the Diet Pepsi and not the Tide. 🤞
Sitting here in Iowa City, Iowa, washing sweat stained clothes from a week of hard work on the road. Only 5 more days to go. My hotel across the way only cost me $100, which is sadly a steal these days. But dang did I get lucky. A giant room complete with a living room, a fireplace, a beautiful king sized bed and a jacuzzi tub so big that I’m pretty sure my entire band could fit into it and invite one or two of you along. Thank you, Hotels.com.
I went to school here in Iowa City a lifetime ago. Religious Studies, with an emphasis on Hinduism and Buddhism. I thought I might become a professor. I studied a semester in Mysore, India to work on my Honors thesis on the Birth Practices and Rituals of Hindu Women in South India. I worked at a law firm delivering abstracts part time. I also worked part time at the Englert Theater, which, at the time, was a movie theater across from my apartment above Barbara’s Bake Shop. It was an ok kind of job. Sure, I reeked of old oil every night. But I had the benefits of free movies, free popcorn and had only to button up my shirt as I ran down the stairs, across the street and into work. The perfect commute.
Iowa City with my friends, in the late 90s.
She wasn’t ready yet.
This was also the time I used to walk the Ped Mall in Iowa City, and would watch this guy sing and play the blues. And boy did he. I would question silently how someone even does that? Make music, for a living? Speaking it aloud seemed irresponsible to this Midwestern firstborn. But watching him made me feel a certain kind of way. There was a longing, maybe even a subtle jealousy, at watching this truly talented man live fully and express himself as a musician. Little did I know that years later I’d be in the International Blues Challenge with him in Memphis, Tennessee representing Iowa, my group as the band, his as a Solo. And I didn’t know then that in 2018 I’d watch him from the balcony of the Orpheum Theater in Memphis with tears in my eyes as he won the International Blues Challenge with his rendition of Eleanor Rigby. Kevin Burt. Iowa City.
Iowa City.
My 22nd birthday party on Melrose Court.
Iowa City was where I lived with my friends in a house on Melrose Court. Iowa City was where I had my first hangover. Where I learned to write and to study. Where I failed to make the Old Gold Singers show choir. Where I dated a guy my friends and I referred to as “Poopie Shoes Dave” to keep him separate from the Dave I ended up marrying who smelled terrific and never had poopie shoes. That I know of.
Iowa City was also where I graduated and ended up receiving a scholarship I didn’t even know I was up for from the Religion Department at the University of Iowa. It named me as the top student in that graduating class or something like that. Or maybe it was for nicest smile? Not sure, but what I do know is that it came with $1,000. Which to me was HUGE.
They thought I’d use it toward grad school so that I could indeed go on to teach. But something else was calling me and I couldn’t ignore it: A Taylor 314CE from the guitar shop on N. Linn Street. And it’s that guitar on which in 2008 I ended up writing my very first songs.
With Absolute Hoot and my Taylor guitar in Decorah, Iowa around 2011.
I don’t get to Iowa City very often. And when I got here I drove past my old Melrose Court house and my old Washington Street apartment. I went past the backyard near Mormon Trek where I got married and remembered how happy and positive I was about the future. I didn’t know that the future would include some pretty awful days. In your 20s, everything seems so shiny.
But I also didn’t know how scared I was back then. Scared to live life on my own terms and to follow my own dreams. I didn’t know yet that I could do it.
But here I am today, sitting in a laundromat in Iowa City, washing my clothes as a touring musician and getting set to go to N. Linn St, near where I bought my very first guitar, to help celebrate the Iowa Songwriters Festival. A festival that includes heroes like Lucinda Williams and Mary Gauthier, and other incredible songwriters like Craig Finn, Hurray For the Riff Raff, Fred Eaglesmith, Bill Callahan. And Jeni Grouws.
Twentysomething me would never have been able to see a day when my name was on the poster with these icons. A day when I was making a living as a musician. When I had already been in the top 10 on the Billboard Blues Charts twice with my band Avey Grouws Band and was now debuting my solo album Music House. When my every day conversations focused on music and songwriting and poetry and stories and travel.
But here I am. Damn, that road was long and winding and had a whole lot of detours. But I’m here. I’m living the life I’d only dreamed about quietly when I was living in Iowa City. So it feels a little extra special to be in Iowa City today for the ICSF announcement.
If you’d like to get your tickets to the Iowa City Songwriters Festival, go to englert.org. And if you’d like to pre order Music House or get any of the other rewards on my Kickstarter, go to kickstarter.com/projects/jenigrouws/jeni-grouws-music-house
I’m at 66% with just 13 days to go. Anxious, but grateful. 💛
There’s the “ding”. Laundry is done. Time to get back to my hotel and get set to celebrate the Iowa City Songwriters Festival with twentysomething Jeni that still lives in me.
Love,
Jeni
