Meredith Siemsen

1 week ago | southeastiowaunion.com | Meredith Siemsen

Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. There’s something comforting about being read to. Maybe it goes back to when we were kids. Growing up in Fairfield in the 1980s, I remember by Mom reading me chapters out loud from The Little House on the Prairie. My older brother read to me from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I liked to close my eyes and imagine these new worlds, new characters bursting into full color.

2 weeks ago | iowasource.com | Meredith Siemsen

My dad was raised Catholic, but by the time he hit college had given up church for Monty Python. Mom was brought up Presbyterian, but the moment she’d been told that children who hadn’t been converted to Christ were going to hell, she knew something was deeply wrong about that whole situation. Because what about those kids in tribal Tanzania who hadn’t even heard of Jesus, hadn’t even been given a chance to decide?

1 month ago | iowasource.com | Meredith Siemsen

I didn’t know I cared about jazz. Sure, I’d gotten caught in a “Heavenly” Harry Connick Jr. wave in the early ’90s—my teenage self swooned over his velvety voice and big-band sound—but it wasn’t until 1996, when a crew of chain-smoking college-age hipsters invited me to their poker game that jazz began to rewire my brain.

2 months ago | iowasource.com | Meredith Siemsen

February. That month when two people are better than one under the covers. When the dinner hour is still dark enough to eat your favorite dish by candlelight. When the piece of chocolate cake you order before the show is just the right size to share. You find your cozy seats. Your fingers accidentally touch as you pass her the folded pages of the program. She whispers something in your ear as the lights dim.

Dec 13, 2024 | iowasource.com | Meredith Siemsen

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.”  —Nikola TeslaI was having a particularly rotten week. Anger was near the surface. And grief was bone deep. I was tempted to book a session at the local Smash Room when I remembered a new business that had just launched in town.