I’ve been thinking, lately, of earworms.
Earworm, meaning a catchy song or tune that runs, ruthlessly, relentlessly, itself-righteously inside one’s brain.
Earworm, from the German “Ohrwurm,” meaning muscle itch. Meaning something of the body that one tries – that one fails – to get rid of. No wonder the phrase “stuck in my head” sounds inadequate. The stuck thing (be it song, poem, idea) never so much lingers in my head as circulates through my blood. This lingering feels bodily, subconscious. It consumes me.
My earworms are not only songs (although, yes, those as well. Lately, “Graceland Too” by Phoebe Bridgers, a profound ballad on friendship; and Big Thief’s latest single, “Vampire Empire”).
My earworms are also people, locations, moments. Is there a word for this? For a stuck thing that is not a melody, but a face? A place? And, always, acutely specific. Not the grassy clearing, but the moment I saw it, peaking out from the leaf-lined trail.
One earworm that has yet to unstick itself: Iowa. Or, more specifically, the Iowa corn. This is appropriate, as earworm is not only slang for a stuck song. It’s also short for “corn earworm,” a moth that feasts on cotton and, yes, corn.
The first time I saw the Iowa cornfields — I mean really saw them — will be forever imprinted in my brain, and buried deep in my pores and bones. For, discovering corn is discovering the ocean. It’s that same overwhelming realization — that you are so small and the world so vast, and all those little tasks and tidbits you worry about each day are nothing but grains of sand on the anthill of your life. And you are alive with the idea of it.
When I first met the Iowa corn, I was eighteen-years-old. I had just moved to Iowa for college. I had never lived in the midwest before. I was running up a steep hill at sunset. My arms pumping, sweat on my skin. All around me lay gold, the red roofs of barns, and one beachball sun. I climbed faster and harder, and the globe sunk deeper. I was eighteen and the horizon was infinite. I was eighteen and chasing the sun. And suddenly, I was there, at the top of the hill.
And I will never forget the sea of gold below me — its vast, shining monotony. I thought it spanned for millions of miles. I thought I could float forever in its waves.
This is the song that plays on repeat. When I think of Iowa, this is the image that remains. But, I realize it’s not the whole symphony. For, in reality, corn is complex; both beautiful and harmful. So is Iowa.
Put simply, factory farm corn strips the land of nutrients and contributes enormously to climate change. In a corn field in Iowa, a Trump sign hangs on a barn. A Biden sign on the house next door. In Des Moines, a group of women bundle emergency contraceptives, give out pregnancy tests and abortion resources for free. Nearby, on I-80, a billboard reads “Smile! Your parents chose life.” In each direction, the corn grows.
I left Iowa over five years ago. Soon after, I returned to the east coast. In Brooklyn, NY, beliefs are nearly ubiquitous: trans women are women, Don’t say DeSantis, abortion rights are human rights, climate change is here and getting worse. No need to echo the obvious. Safe in my Brooklyn bubble, the earworm that is Iowa sang softer every year.
Last week, I returned to Iowa to participate in RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) — a 500-plus-mile, seven-day, heatwave extravaganza. This year was RAGBRAI’S 50th anniversary, and special to me for a couple reasons: 1. It was the most athletic feat I’d completed since recovering from Long Covid. 2. I got to ride with my dad and sister. My dad participated in RAGBRAI for the first time in 1998, and I grew up hearing stories about his favorite party on wheels. For the 50th anniversary, he organized a team of 20 people, including his two original teammates, my sister, me, and other friends.
The vibe of RAGBRAI: midwest state fair meets July 4th barbecue, meets brewery on a Friday night, meets strenuous bike ride with incessant hills and record humidity. It’s a spandex-clad, beer-splashed, sweaty mayhem with 60,000 of your closest friends.
This year, the crowd was larger than any previous RAGBRAIs, which made it a bit dangerous. It was also one of the longer and hillier routes (many people think no hills exist in Iowa. This is a gross misconception. There are hills. Oh, are there hills).
Also, two of the longest, hilliest days transpired during a heatwave. On Friday, the heat index was upwards of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The asphalt was about 120 degrees. The last fifteen miles included 1600 feet of elevation gain. Ok, step away from the numbers for a moment and imagine: you rode 90 miles yesterday, you logged four hours of tent-sleep each of the past five nights, you woke up at 4:30am to get miles in before the sun, you are climbing up a steep hill with ten miles to go on an 85-mile day and, also, you are trapped in a sauna.
Hot air is blowing at you from every angle, filling your lungs, your eyes, your pores. Your back cramping, your head pounding (despite the gallon of water and the other gallon of electrolytes, and the fact that you pee every half hour). There is no respite from the sauna. No pool to jump in, no trap door. The only way out is up. And up and up and up.
Suffice it to say, there were many ambulances that day (and I don’t write this flippantly. It was bad. I think RAGBRAI should have planned better contingency plans).
But, despite the unreal temperatures and ceaseless hills and hour-long lines for a fucking sandwich, and hordes of stupid Americans on bikes, RAGBRAI was somehow AN ABSOLUTE BLAST!
I credit the little, Iowa towns for much of the enjoyment. The families sitting at the edges of their driveways at 6am to cheer on bikers. The women’s leagues with their slices of fruit pies. The middle school softball teams selling gatorade. The local plumber standing behind the water station he’d concocted, eyes soft with pride. The farmer who set up a slip-and-slide: a bunch of soapy-wet tarps, bales of hay, and a line of cyclists sliding and shrieking with joy. The mayor who dressed his pig in a pink tutu. The three little boys selling monster cookies (“No, Landon! They’re not monster cookies! They’re oatmeal cookies.” “No, Jack, they’re peanut butter cookies!”).
Remembering Iowa.
I want to remember Iowa. I rode through a small town and the local Democrat group passed water to cyclists. “Go Blue!” they yelled, as if cheering for a sports team. Around the corner, a Trump sign lay planted in the ground.
I cannot forget this.
So, I beckon the earworm that is Iowa to sing louder with its many songs. Its complicated, beautiful, ugly songs. I welcome the clash of voices — the cymbals, the violins, and the offbeat drums. The corn, with all its beauty and harm. I think, how complex a place can be. How complex memory can be.
How easy to stay swaddled in my safe cocoon of Brooklyn. To hide, in fear of America. To forget America. To forget corn.
Recent Reporting
Austin Killips Just Wants To Ride Her Bike, for Outside
27-year-old professional cyclist, Austin Killips, has recently become a focal point in the debate on transgender women in sport. Her success — and the subsequent outcry — pushed cycling’s governing body, the Unione Cycliste Internationale (UCI), to ban transgender women from competing in the women’s field at future bike races.
Killips is not just an accomplished athlete; she’s an incredibly pensive and philosophical person. When Killips speaks on trans athlete policy, she drifts elsewhere, landing in history, literature, and philosophy. (“Are you familiar with Jasbir K. Puar?” she asked me at one point, over Zoom. She proceeded to describe the work of Puar, academic and author of The Right to Maim, on harmful state policies that enable mass debilitation. Then, later: “Have you read much Judith Butler? Have you read Precarious Life?”).
To her, the debate on trans athlete inclusion is not just about sports. It cannot be understood in isolation from the long history of harm inflicted on folks of marginalized identities.
When discussing trans athlete inclusion, I often borrow language from an interview I did in early 2022, for an Outside article on the Stanford FASTR program. I was struck by the words of Dr. Megan Roche, FASTR cofounder: “Inclusion has got to be the default in every single sport environment,” she said.
Inclusion has got to be the default. This means that, unless we have overwhelmingly clear evidence that trans women who have suppressed testosterone have an advantage over cis women, we must err on the side of inclusion.
And a breadth of research shows that trans women who have undergone hormone suppression do not have an inherent advantage in sport.
Plus, history has shown us, time and time again, that exclusion brings harm. So, we ought to think more critically. We ought to think about what it means to be a little kid who is told they can’t play soccer with their friends. We ought to think about the message we send when we prevent trans people from participating in life as their true selves — especially when data shows they already face disproportionately high levels of violence, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. We ought to think about the broader harm we are inflicting.
More:
Running and Chronic Illness: Between Two Worlds, for Trail Runner. Three women spoke with me about their experiences as athletes with chronic illnesses. They straddle two faraway worlds: one of extreme fitness and one of debilitating symptoms and daily uncertainty.
Emi Perry’s Rise to Elite Sport, for Tracksmith. I spoke with Emi Perry, a 30-year-old professional para-triathlete with a penchant for building community —and speed!
To end these musings, I will note: upon finishing a first draft of this newsletter, I realized I had written “earwigs” not “earworms” throughout. I was shook. That one little word, a focus of this newsletter. How could I have written it wrong?
I guess, some things refuse to stick. And that refusal feels important, although I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it’s a reminder of impermanence. Or else, a reminder of human resilience — that the world can knock you down a million times, and you’ll forget the strength of the final blow. A reminder that an issue (like trans athletes’ rights) can seem so contentious, and progress so slow. Still, stuck minds can become unstuck. Inclusion can eventually prevail.
Whatever it means, it’s comforting. I’ll hang onto it for some time.
Thank you so much for reading. You can find me on the internet here. Feel free to contact me for freelance or other inquiries, or just to send me kind words, at emmamzimm@gmail.com.
-Emma