Friday, 26 March 2021
Visitor Sickness or Scurryfunge Context
After our year-long battle with COVID restrictions, not to mention four flight reschedules, my mother may be visiting. The thing about getting visitors is you start looking at your place differently. It makes you, me at least, realise the improvements and or cleaning that needs to happen. For me, things like I suddenly realised my study’s walls are due for repainting (my mother will be sleeping in the study). It also made me regret not doing the bathroom renovation.
My mother is turning 80 this year, and I wanted to make the shower a little easier to access. When we built the house, it’s the only thing that I hadn’t realised was awkward. For some reason, on a 90cm gap, there’s a 20cm solid partition restricting the doorway to the shower leaving 70cm. Of the 70cm, 5cm is taken up with hinges and swinging radius, leaving 65cm for access. COVID restrictions made me complacent. Not until the broken ankle did the motivation to fix it return. The fractured ankle provided its restrictions, and getting out to look at fixings was a challenge.
Having ankle damage makes you look at your place differently, and it tends to motivate me to organise and clean and tidy everything. The motivation comes from the need for perfection – or as good as it can get.
If you are one of those people, that always have a spotlessly clean and organised home, the concept raised in this blog will be alien to you. The rest of the post will read more fiction rather than reality. Anyway, this particular type of house cleaning or scurryfunge (Susie Dent) is because visitors will be arriving shortly. Scurryfunge is what my family call visitor sickness.
Family Context
My sister and I were driven crazy by our mother whenever we were getting visitors. The tension escalated; sitting on your butt could not be done in my mother’s line of sight, peripheral or otherwise. Even if mother suspected us of seating, there were angry grizzles and hurled our way. At one point, the house was clean – to my mind at least – and I sat down. My mother came in and asked what my teenage self was doing. To which my response was “resting and about to get a book out to read”.
It didn’t go down well because an argument ensued and ended with me offering to scrub the bathroom tiles with a toothbrush sarcastically. My mother cracked a smile and handed me a toothbrush. Tension broken, we both laughed, and she gave me a list of chores she wanted to do. The activities moved on to setting up dinner plates, et cetera.
With this habit drilled into me (and my sister), it continued into our adulthood. You came to realise that going with the flow was less time-consuming and stressful than doing the cleaning. It was simple; friends meant last-minute cleaning frenzy. You may ask, “why not keep the place clean all the time?”. Good question. However. It doesn’t matter if the place is spotless and close to perfection, there’s still more cleaning, organising or something to improve before the visitors arrive.
Moving out of Home
There was a similar kind of frenzy when I began flatting and share accommodation when flatmates had guests. Depending on the flatmate/s, there were varying degrees of “perfection”. The six-monthly rental inspections spurred the same sort of frenzy. Any damage which could be related to us as tenancy got repaired.
For many years, I failed to understand why this happened. It’s not like any of our friends would disown or unfriend me if the place was a mess. If they did, they wouldn’t be my friends. Likewise, when I visit them, I don’t expect a spotless home.
It seemed to be a “house proud” thing for many years – part of the personal ego wanting to show-off or show-up the house or the person, respectively. Then there was a period where I felt it might be a historical, hygiene thing where you want to make your visitors feel safe and not catch anything from their visit to you. For me, that didn’t quite sit right either.
Visiting a Friend
It was in visiting my friend Shaneen I discovered the real reason. You see, Shaneen and I had arranged to catch up on the weekend in two weekends unless something came up. After our phone call, Shaneen had gotten so busy that she had forgotten to tell her husband or note our visit calendar.
As you may have guessed, my husband and I rocked up to Shaneen and her husband’s place and surprised them. Scurryfunge was impossible for Shareen because there was no warning.
A lot of rain fell leading up to our visit. Clothes unsuited for the dryer and too many for the air-dryer to handle got draped over chairs. Shareen’s had casually thrown her handbag and gym bag just inside the entrance.
Shaneen and her husband were shocked, and we were embarrassed. Embarrassed is not the right word; I was feeling awkward rather than ashamed. Shaneen and I were teenagers together; we knew what each other’s untidy was.
My friend awkwardly greeted us and surreptitiously cleared the clothes off the chairs all at once. It was then I realised why we go through “visitor frenzy” or scurryfunge. I felt my friend had enough on her plate for the weekend without worrying about me.
I felt we were taking her time from what they thought would be a leisurely weekend at home, reading books, watching TV, putting together Lego. All stuff while the clothes were drying. It appeared that she/ they didn’t have time for us. Not that she didn’t want to see us.
We offered to go and come back the following week since we hadn’t confirmed the date. My friends kindly insisted we stay – she was in a poor predicament. However, our friendship is secure enough that Shaneen would say otherwise if it mattered (I hope).
Illumination
When you visit someone whose house is tidy, you don’t feel like you’re imposing. The hosts have time to give you, as they aren’t distracted. You get their full attention, enjoy their company, and as a side-effect, they get to show off their beautiful place. The visit was an eye-opener, and I’m thankful for the rare moment, to my friend’s embarrassment, for me to gain the insight. It’s also lovely to know home cleanliness isn’t all ego.
Family's Coming
Suffice it to say my mother and sister’s family are arriving for Easter. Visitor sickness has taken hold, and it’s seriously pushing my self-restraint. Even though my mobility is better, there’s a risk of overusing the muscles. There are many problems; I’m a project manager who thrives on the “last minute”. The words of Rita Mae Brown’s quote, “if it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done”, are sometimes uttered by me to upper management as a project hurtles toward a deadline (admittedly, stakeholders don’t find it reassuring 😁).
Another problem is my natural tendency to “lean in” to my healing. I have mentioned another of my favourite/ common phrases in earlier posts: “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing”. It was a phrase I was putting on hold until next year because the Year of the Cow likes it when there’s equilibrium.
There are a lot of natural “me things” to suppress at the moment. The question is, “is it overdoing it if that’s what you’d normally be doing?”. Wouldn’t I only be overdoing it if it was more than I’d normally do? I was Just asking 😉. Oh, dear me, I sound like an eight-year-old trying to negotiate extra dessert!
With all of these “problems” of mine, working my ankle a little more than usual due to the visitor sickness itch was not helped by today’s humidity. Although the temperature was only 27°C (80.5°F), it was humid. Humidity causes my ankle to swell. The extra activity reduced the amount of time for elevation, so the ankle’s looking and feeling pretty bad. The ankle’s owner is feeling sorry for herself 😢.
Of course, the visit from family is worth it. Let’s see what the cards have to say!
Today's Cards
The Cards - Scurryfunge Analysis
Cross
It was a long story today, so I’ll make the analysis short.
The repeat cards were Schizophrenia which has moved from Feelings to Distant Past, and We are the World which has moved from Now to Future Energy.
Today’s focus has been about Healing which sits in the Now position. Healing is being Influenced/ Blocked by Traveling. Yes, today, Traveling is a blocker of healing given today’s context. Travelling, being the visitors will be travelling from interstate, visitor sickness (and my lack of discipline) is preventing me from moderately managing my ankle’s healing.
Receptivity is the Goal. It makes sense; I would like to make our place welcoming and hospitable for my visiting family.
Schizophrenia in Distant Past, the blessing of a family visit has always been a two-edged sword – tension before and sometimes tension on arrival. Holding the two competing needs of Healing and cleaning simultaneously is a duality complex to maintain a balance. If I’m not careful, it will not do me any favours.
Recent Past had Possibilities for Healing, particularly around working the muscles, providing no “unnatural” foot movements. Working the ankle like usual may even be suitable for it.
We are the World is in the Future Energy position. It implies that teamwork will assist with getting things done.
Base
My Feelings on my Healing efforts are that I’ve been the model patient. Been doing my exercises and mainly keeping the leg suitably elevated. The immediate future may show this too.
Others’ Views is that of Suppression. Not sure which aspects they see me suppressing, maybe all those listed in today’s story.
Inner Voice is in the Hopes & Fears position. Hope is that I’m listening to my Inner Voice when pursuing extracurricular healing activities. Fear is that I’m misreading the advice because I’m impatient and putting a confirmational bias on it.
The Outcome of Ordinariness is lovely and not just a dream. In this position, Ordinariness signifies my everyday life and normal movement without worrying about swelling or overworking the ankle. At the moment, however, Ordinariness is about appreciating the fact that I have mobility and can do things that would have been an ask a month ago. Oh, and I do!
References
- Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
- Brown, Rita Mae, quote
