Duck's Hex - Mailroom vs. Boardroom

For my creative nonfiction writing class last semester, with the lively, inspiring Dr. Rigby, I had to create a fifteen page piece. I do not like composing nonfiction at all. I like to keep myself out of my stories, and sometimes, coming to your truths can be dragging your feet through the mud agonizing, but I had to face a lot in his class if I wanted to pass. And surface crap does not do good with me, so I had to dig hella deep to even become inspired to get words on a page.

This section was not a part of the original piece or portfolio at all. In fact, I added this part and a couple of others after I had already completed the course. It fit too well, and I had a knocking at my heart to add the experiences to what I already had. It was as if Dr. Rigby was right in my conscious, urging me to continue. Wish I could have taken on his Autobiography class just for his inspiring presence and words, but adding to this piece will have to suffice, and maybe even more will be added in the future. Who knows.

Enjoy.

Duck's Hex by Shaire Blythe

I watched Mt. Zion of Nashville's Video-On-Demand a couple of nights before going home. Bishop said, "If you can't handle the mailroom, how do you expect to handle what happens in the boardroom?" The moment I heard that, I quickly scribbled his words down in what has become my church-going notebook. Sometimes, I find it ironic how I had won the yarn notebook at a Women of Faith Christmas dinner when I was only in elementary school. Playing Dirty Santa, I had noticed the palm tree on the front of the cover and knew that was the gift I had to go home with at the end of the evening. It reminded me of an island. It reminded me of an escape to paradise.

I wrote in the notebook a couple of times after winning it. It was filled with prayer requests and rough sketches of flowers in vases, and my future children's names at the time. Eventually, it became untouched, forgotten, nestled between my name inscribed Bible and an old cigar case that had a tropical island of some sort depicted on its cover. A century later, when I revived the notebook, it resumed its role of being a godly instrument.

One thing I have learned over and over again: nothing is a mere coincidence.

I kept returning to that part of Bishop's message, repeating it over and over in my racked mind. I broke down once after seeing the ceiling crumbled on the floor, soaking, reeking of wet death. But just that once. I was still in the mailroom. If I couldn’t get off of my ass and fix this problem to the best of my ability, while I was still home, then I was never going to make it to the boardroom. And damn it. I wanted that boardroom.

The day right after I discovered the ceiling, I got a plumber to come inspect the pipes above. I would love to disclose his name, because he was extremely helpful and generous, but I won't. I'm still not certain if his curiosity toward what I was studying in school and talk of my lack of a driveway was actual interest or simply causal part-of-the-job conversation, but I was still grateful for his kindness and dedication to finding the problem and, then, fixing it two days later, under thirty minutes.

One of my main concerns was the smell that people had to deal with coming in an out of the house. The plumber nor the independent contractor hired to look at the roof said a word about it, but I knew it was a cross to bear.

Granted, of course there was going to be a smell; water had leaked and was absorbed for days into half the flooring, and wet debris didn't smell like evergreen mountains. A close friend had volunteered to look at the damage on Christmas day, when everyone else had been closed for the holiday. While I was thankful for his kindness, I couldn’t allow him to because of the mess and the smell.

"I don't want you around it. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t choose to be around it," I had messaged him. He didn’t put up a fight, but he did ask once more the next day. My answer remained solid.

I've never been great with opening myself up--to be around others--when my world is catastrophically unstable. I prefer to become a ghost, floating through my issues and returning to my physical body only when I have solved my problems, or have gotten a better handle on them. I must have shut people out for two days, at the most, meditating on what I saw as priorities, trying not to flip my shit. For a pipe to burst when it did and cause so much damage was the worst time. I had purposefully chosen to divert from working a lot that winter break to focus on my writing. I didn’t have a steady flow of money coming in like I was used to. Some of this, if not most, was going to come out of my pocket. Financially, I was going to be set back a couple of places, more than I had already planned for. But that boardroom. I had to remember the boardroom.

I was lucky enough to have my half-brother's mom open her home up to me, to take a shower, while my water wasn't running. I was lucky enough to have heat, electricity coursing through the walls--cracked or as scarred as they may be--of the ________*  home. I was lucky enough to have been able to get Christmas dinner cooked without the rest of the ceiling caving in above my head. I was lucky to still have a roof. A home. A bed. Money to pay for the damage, for gas, for my bills back at school and so on. I was lucky.

Breaking apart the ceiling pieces, so I could pack them away in bags and toss them out, I couldn’t help but think of the people out there that have no place to call home. They can't take a shower daily. They don’t have food to eat on the regular. They have no money to their names. They are locked out in the cold and the rain and have no one to call on. How could I possibly sit in that home and complain, throw a fit and give up saying, "Woe, pitiful me?"

I had no right.

I can say that I've dealt with a lot of shit--heavy shit--for a long time coming. When I think back, I don’t even know how I survived, not being as close to God and in tune with faith as I am now. I can recall wanting to give up at times back then, but I guess I am just more aware. On some ends, things got worse, placing me right at the front of the battle lines. Sometimes, I have been by myself. Or, so it seems.

I read somewhere that you have to act like the cards you've been dealt were the ones you wanted all along. Duck's hex, or not, I was handed these cards. My entire life could be a parody. It all could be one big joke on me. But I have made it this far. I have been to spaces and dealt with issues that other people my age know nothing about yet, which makes it harder to explain to anyone who has no idea what it can be like to take on the role of an adult before even settling into the stages of being a kid. While I used to see every roadblock as a misfortune, I know it's really not. My cards are just preparing me for that boardroom meeting.

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*= unable to be disclosed