Shui Feng

It's become a habit, the good natured smile and schmooze. I automatically flashed a genuine, warm grin at the woman who appeared to live in the house two blocks away from mine as she brought a few more stray items to the recycling bin already awaiting the trucks by the curb. She smiled back, and struck up a conversation.

Within minutes, we were well past basic small talk, and I had already learned of her recent surgeries on her cervical and mid spine. Her gait, which had reminded me of my mother's -- halting in a way that hinted at a fairly recent blow to spryness -- and her face, which reminded me, at least in terms of wrinkle count, of my own, were incongruous. My guess was breast cancer, generally the go-to illness for women in their prime. She seemed like such a nice person with whom to share the planet; I was glad to know her infirmities were more chronic than deadly, although a minor form of cancer had, she told me, jumped in to round out the festivities. "Things happen in threes," I told her. She should be done, at least for a while. Maybe that's why she was smiling.

Her house is one I have passed many times, yet this was the first time I could put a face to a person living there. It is set back from the street, with what appears to be a free standing brick wall blocking any doors or windows. The front lawn is as inviting as the solid brick windowless blockade is not. It is landscaped in that way that seems casual but is anything but. Painstakingly organized chaos.

Everything about the woman, come to think of it, was anomalous. Her gait and her face, her garden and the facade of her home, her open and genuine sociability and the way she described her home. "You must come and visit one day, come in for some iced tea," she insisted, and I believed her. "We hide from everybody in there." I wondered, if she had built herself a hiding place, why she was inviting me inside.

She must have noticed my confusion. I stared at the formidable and decidedly uninviting brick wall, trying to figure out how I would manage to cross the threshold. Maybe the threshold was invisible, like some magical Harry Potter style train track that would appear just in time to whisk the chosen ones in, then disappear." It's not what you would think at all," she explained, "back there. It's all open, walls of glass, kind of a feng shui house." This woman who is hobbling around after three debilitating surgeries was telling me she lived in a feng shui  house, an auspicious house. (My understanding of feng shui is limited; all I know is that it somehow creates some sense of well being and good fortune.) Kind of up there with the tooth fairy.

I assured my new friend I would visit soon, without my dog. She looked down at Manny and agreed that would be a good idea. She claimed her cats would not like him. I explained that he would pee in her house. Whatever the reason, Manny and feng shui would not be a good fit. He is the opposite of feng shui. Shui feng. 

As for my house, the furniture just kind of faces this way and that, wherever it landed. The front door and the garage both face north, which may or may not be auspicious but at least they are not hidden behind a solid brick wall. Auspicious for guests and, yes, poor blind Manny, who would no doubt bump his weary snout into it every time. There are no wide open glass walls, although people seem to see in anyway. Or at least they think they do.

Well, to each her own, and as incongruous as this woman's house may seem, my curiosity has been piqued. She is as upbeat and kind and welcoming as anyone I have met, in spite of some catastrophic and untimely blows to her being. Heck, I despise any kind of tea, but I'm goin' in!