As a student instructor in one of the best nonfiction-writing programs in the country, I earned approximately $19,000 in 2017 before taxes. I also worked part time for a small company that overcharges customers to underpay proofreaders who edit their work. That raised my yearly income to about $20,000.
When I got into the University of Iowa’s nonfiction-writing M.F.A. program, I cried out of joy and then again out of fear — I had no savings, I’d lived paycheck to paycheck in Chicago. As a new instructor my first year, according to my offer letter, I would be paid roughly $15,000. Quitting my job and moving to Iowa meant a month without a paycheck. A friend lent me the money for the deposit on my new apartment. Other friends bought my drinks when they came to visit, Venmo’d me money for my textbooks, ordered me groceries from a state away. My credit-card debt began to rise. I tried to make it work, but during my final August in graduate school, I started going to the food bank.
When I got into the University of Iowa’s nonfiction-writing M.F.A. program, I cried out of joy and then again out of fear.
My most recent walk there took place one sticky-hot day after a proofreading shift. When I arrived, I used a paper towel to blot my face before joining others in the humid waiting room. I sat and texted, feeling guilty before I remembered that poor people are allowed to have cellphones, and then my name was called. The man who signed me in greeted me at the door with a ticket and a basket. My ticket was blue and said “2,” which meant that I had two food-bank dollars I could spend at my first stop — two shelves and one freezer full of nutritious, high-calorie food, as well as a shelf of household cleaning goods. The previous time I spent my “2" on dental floss and milk; this time, I got a half gallon of whole milk donated by Trader Joe’s and a dozen eggs.
I went through the lines and got zucchini and the weird, delicious roasted-chickpea snacks my Iowan friends love to eat when they come over (and which I never tell them I got free). The food bank was a bit picked over, given the time of day, but even as I thought that, old ladies started hustling over with containers of green beans, and squash as yellow as baby ducks. I got some bagged granola clumps with berries and chocolate, planning to pour chocolate milk over them for a happy breakfast.
As I turned to get in the checkout line, a man in trendy glasses appeared just at the edge of my line of vision with his arm outstretched. He was holding something. “You should have this,” he said to me. “It’s the last one, and I’ve had it before. It’s pretty good.” My hand closed around whatever he was offering. I opened my palm: It was a white packet containing two organic dark chocolate peanut-butter cups. I have a rich sweet tooth, but lately I haven’t been able to indulge. “Thank you,” I said, but he was already gone.
I want to be myself in Iowa, but I’m in between selves, betraying one even as I fail to fully inhabit the other. I’m losing my way of speaking, saying “I’m well” when I mean “I’m good,” saying “asphalt” instead of “ashphalt.” I’m losing my spelling. My first year here, the director told me I try too hard when I write “anyways” instead of “anyway,” “towards” instead of “toward,” which is how I learned that I’m supposed to drop the s. Sometimes my brothers tease me when I talk now, but I hear them trying it out for themselves. My brother Mike says, “You’re about to have done two colleges. That’s two more than me.” We mean it when we both laugh.
This summer at a friend’s house, a young man in another graduate program ate the bread I made with food-bank zucchini as he said he thought health insurance should be up to the states, and what isn’t covered should be subsidized by charity. I didn’t tell him that church fund raisers had attempted and failed to cover my brother’s medical bills, and then my father’s. Instead, I sank into the backrub of a trusted friend, someone with money anxieties like mine who, when my laptop broke last year, gave me her extra one (an ex-boyfriend had stolen it for her). It’s the laptop I’m writing on now, as I sit on my back porch. All I want to say is yes, I am grateful to be here, but that doesn’t mean I’m not hungry.
