Can You Feng Shui Your Way To Love?

by Penelope Green

“I knew a guy once who had all his back taxes stored under his bed,” she continues solemnly. “He had a lot of difficulty moving forward with his life.”

Right, I say, nothing under the bed.

Further, Reiko would like to see things in pairs in here: pictures, for example, and a table on each side of the bed, with lamps to top them. A vertical beam that is pointing straight at us causes her to raise a delicate eyebrow.

“That’s a poison arrow,” she says, alarmingly. “Not so great for health. Cover it.” Cover it? A massive steel beam wrapped in 75-year-old plaster? Relax, she tells me. A plant will do, or hanging fabric. Got it: Buy a huge plant, I note. Reiko, a politic young woman whose sense of tact is as sophisticated as her sense of style, sits down suddenly.

“Listen,” she says gently, “feng shui can set up a space to attract whatever it is you want to attract, but you need to tell the space what it is you want. Until that’s clear for you, you can’t tell the space what to do.”

Right, I say again. Tell the space what I want. What do I want?

“Call me with your questions,” she says as she leaves, “I want to know what happens.”

Nothing happens, not for a month. It’s February, a time of icy inertia. Outside the apartment, I have two dates, setups from before Christmas. Nice men, but I am distracted, even agitated, during these evenings, and nothing clicks.

One morning in March, I shake myself a bit and clear the boxes and such out from under my bed. That evening, with my daughter’s help, I move things in and out of my bedroom. We bring side tables in to flank the bed, and another lamp, and a little painting of two peaches (pairs, get it?). We hang photographs in pairs, and artwork by my daughter. “Gosh, Mom,” she says. “It finally looks like someone lives here.”

The next day, I buy a seven-foot-tall ficus tree, in an enormous earthenware pot, for hundreds of dollars. (I email Reiko later, to tell her that I now can’t afford to buy a rug or cover my windows. She seems happy I’ve taken care of the poison arrow.) The elderly West Indian man at the plant store is unconvinced of my suitability as a plant steward.

“Ficus are very hard to take care of,” he keeps saying, shaking his head. “They want lots of light, lots of humidity. Not good in a New York apartment.” Well, why, I want to ask, do you sell them, then? Instead, I promise I will water weekly and mist constantly. I can see he doesn’t believe me.

At home that night, the ficus throws shadows like birds on my walls. In the morning, I wake up and think I’m in the Islands.