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BY CHARLES YARBOROUGH,
L.AC.
"That’s not your fairy godmother,"
said the woman in the
knitted
cap. "That’s
Liberace. And you’d better put him back where
you found him."
The little girl clutched the sequined
doll to her chest and frowned. "No!" she
pouted. "She’s my fairy godmother.
Buy her for me,
Mommy. I want!"
It was Sunday morning at
Hollywood Suds, a car wash and detailer just east of
Beverly Hills. I was sitting in the lobby
with a dozen other bleary-eyed early risers, sipping a
complimentary espresso and waiting for an attendant to
appear with my keys. In the center of the room
stood a tall metal rack loaded with novelties: talking
ash trays, raunchy greeting cards, celebrity
dolls. The little girl, attracted by Liberace’s
silver lame' scarf, satin jump suit and purple booties,
had pulled him off his hook and claimed him for her
own. "Mine!" she shouted, stamping her
foot.
"You have enough dolls
already, Lois," said the woman, looking up from her Wall
Street Journal. "I said to put that thing back
where you found it, and I mean right now. I’m
giving you ’til the count of five. One… two…
three…”"
Lois turned. Her faced
was twisted with anger as she slouched toward the rack,
her ballet slippers scraping on the
tile.
"Four… four-and-a-half…"
said her mother, gazing absently at her
newspaper.
Lois shoved the doll
mightily against the rack and, for a brief second, it
appeared she may have skewered it on the hook. But
then the rack teetered backwards, just long enough for
Lois to utter the words, "uh-oh." The rack
toppled to the floor with a great clatter, its items
scattering across the tiles. Heads turned,
espressos spilled and someone gasped, "Oh my
God!"
The woman gazed calmly at
her paper and said,
"Four-and-three-quarters."
Lois stood motionless, then
began to cry, covering her eyes with her hands.
Her mother looked up but merely shrugged her shoulders.
Feeling sorry for the little girl with the pigtails and
yellow apron, I got up and stood the rack in its
place. Her mother called from across the room,
"Thank you for your help sir, but Lois will do the
rest. She made the mess and now she can clean it
up. Do you hear that, Miss Lois? You need to
put all those things back on their hooks. And
hurry up, our car is almost ready."
Amazingly, Lois dried her
tears on her apron and started gathering the novelties
from the floor, placing them on their hooks. I had
the feeling I had witnessed a showdown and Lois wasn’t
the winner. The woman looked at me and
winked. "No point rewarding
certain mischevious people, wouldn’t you
agree?"
I was impressed by the
woman’s restraint and asked her, "Doesn’t she wear you
out?"
The woman laughed and said,
"No, it’s just a phase. She’ll get over it.
Of course it would be easier if I weren’t single.
There would be two sets of horns to lock with hers
instead of just one. But it’s better to be single
than to hook up with the wrong guy."
MORE CHOICES THAN YOU
THINK
"Are those your
only choices?" I said. "Being single or hooking up
with the wrong guy? What about finding the right
guy? Why isn’t that included in your list of
choices?"
The woman smiled
faintly. "Because the all the interesting
ones are either married, gay or broke, and
sometimes they’re all three. That’s why I went
ahead and started my own family."
"Oh?" I
said.
"And I’m glad I did,
although it‘s sometimes difficult. Believe me,
I’ve tried every possible way to find the right guy.
It just hasn’t happened. I’m very particular
whom I spend time with. Oh, Lois! Put all
the dolls on the same row, do you hear me,
sweetheart?"
Like many women I’ve met,
she had searched in various ways to find the right
partner, with no result. But had she, I wondered,
exhausted all her options? "Have you tried Chinese
Face Reading?" I asked.
"What’s that?" she
said.
"It’s a way of clarifying
what your best features are. You may know what
your needs are but what about the needs of
others? What are your attractive features?
What are the assets that make you a good catch?
Do you know? After all, it’s not just you
who is choosing the other person. They’re also
choosing you."
She gave me an amused grin
and said, "Come sit over here so we don’t have to shout.
I don’t really care to entertain all these hung-over
deadbeats. Lois sweetheart, ash trays go on the
top row!"
PRETTY
PRIMAL
I sat down next to the woman
and looked closely at her face. She had a high,
fairly wide nose which suggested the potential for great
personal accomplishment, for adventure and the ability
to create wealth. What’s more, the width of her
nose precluded her being a frail character. Her
stern relationship with her daughter proved it.
The woman’s eyebrows had
been plucked and were replaced with thin, wiry, arched
tattoos--mere stylized brushstrokes. These designs
curved like delicate crescent moons over her eyes and,
because of their over-apparent artiness, seemed effete,
rarified and slightly coy all at once. On the
right face they would have been harmonious but on hers
they weren’t. How can I say this? Because
her face, with its wedge shape and sharp chin, was
clearly a Wood type.
In the Chinese pantheon of
elemental types (Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal),
the Wood person is likely to have thick, perhaps even
prickly eyebrows. Despite having been plucked and
replaced with sinuous substitutes, the woman’s eyebrows
were undoubtedly the classic Wood type. The tattoo
was a disguise or diversion, a protestation of delicacy
that was a smokescreen for the woman’s ambition and
personal drive--hallmarks of the Wood character.
It’s not uncommon for women--and sometimes men--to
minimize the fullness of their eyebrows in an effort to
appear less willful or ambitious than they really
are. Sometimes mistaken as merely Neanderthal,
such eyebrows actually announce a fully intact sense of
primal power. In the business world, it’s
occasionally best to conceal such as asset.
"What do you do for a
living?" I asked her.
"Psychotherapist," she
said.
That made sense. She
had changed her features to appear less profound in the
presence of her clients. This fact, together with
her choice of vocation--and the softly rounded contour
of her forehead--suggested the presence of an underlying
Metal element.
Metal is the element that
finds fulfillment in the act of communication, which is
why it produces many actors and spokespeople. In
the Five Element cycle, Metal “controls” Wood.
That is to say, Metal modulates and restrains the
primal power of Wood. When Wood’s dynamism is
infused with Metal’s deep sense of kinship, the
resulting person may be altruistic; he or she may be
found working in the fields of political activism or the
betterment of humankind. In either case, the
person will be a persuasive communicator and
accomplished listener. I explained this theory and
my observations to the young woman, who smiled in
agreement.
"What kind of guy would be
right for me, then?" she asked. "I’m
approached all the time by a variety of men but I can’t
always tell whether they’re sincere or pursuing a sexual
conquest. Who has the time to sort through all
that? That’s why I don’t bother
anymore."
ANALYZE
THESE!
"Let’s consider the
choices," I said. "First there’s the Wood person,
just like you. In my opinion, a second Wood person
in your home might create too much tension, especially
if the other person decides to direct some of that Wood
bossiness toward your daughter. How much parental
authority would you be willing to share with another
person?"
"Not much! She’s my
precious baby! Lois, put all the handcuffs
together on one hook!"
"A Fire person would bring a
lot of sparkle to your life," I said. "However, as
a Wood person (the Fire person’s “mother” element),
you’d be a nurturer and stabilizer in that
relationship."
The woman shook her
head. "I already do enough of that with Lois."
"An Earth person might not
possess the rapid wit that you probably do, but he would
likely be a stable and reliable person."
"Oh?" she said, her eyes
lighting up.
"Although he might be a bit
stubborn and have trouble shifting gears from a ‘single’
lifestyle to one where boundaries have to be dropped for
the good of the family. Mind you, these are all
highly simplified archetypes. With suitable
mediating features, these elements might be quite
appropriate for you."
"Next in line!" said the
woman.
"That leaves Metal and
Water. Since your ‘controlling’ element is Metal,
you would probably resonate with a Metal person.
As a psychologist, you’d appreciate his ability to
detect and respond to nuance in your mutual
relationship. It would be highly
intellectual.”
"That’s nice," she said,
"but when I’m not in a session with a patient, I say to
heck with nuance. Believe it or not, I’m not that
mental.”
"Well, then," I said,
"consider the
Water person."
"I guess I’ll have to," she
said. "That’s all that's left."
"The Water person may be
just as brainy as the Metal person," I said, "but he’ll
bring an element of wonder to your world. The
right fellow is likely to be an original, iconoclastic
thinker."
"Just like me!" she
said.
"Although," I continued, "he
would probably challenge your
assumptions.”"
"I could live with that,"
said the woman, "if he’s charming about it. What
do I look for?"
I described the Water
person’s characteristics: the large ears or ear lobes, a
dreamy, perhaps far off glimmer in the eyes, a somewhat
rounded face. I also cautioned her not to expose
her daughter to the men she dates, as this
will confuse the little girl. Not until the
woman was officially engaged should Lois meet the
man. This would protect the girl from becoming
attached to a potentially transitory
person.
"I know, I know,"
she said. "I'm a psychotherapist. I
know all about rearing a child."
An attendant appeared at the
door and jingled the woman’s car keys. She stood
up. "Well then, I know what I have to do. A Water
person it will be. It’s been interesting and I
thank you for your time. Lois, sweetheart,
let’s go. Come with Mommy. You
were naughty this morning but you also learned
about personal responsibility. Wave goodbye
to the nice man."
"Congratulations on your
child-rearing skills," I
said.
Lois followed, skipping
merrily out the door, a silver lame' scarf and
purple bootie peeking from under her apron.
"Bye bye, mister," she said, and though I may have
imagined it, she sent me a mischevious
wink.
Characters and situations depicted are
fictional. Resemblance to actual persons is
coincidental. Charles Yarborough, L.Ac. is the
owner of Hamptons Health Circle (www.HamptonsHealth.com)
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