The term “Executive Time” has been in the news a lot lately, and I’m afraid I’ve been a victim of the retirement blues—with nothing to do! My “retirement” consisted of a daily 2 mile walk, doing crossword and sudoku puzzles, working on my Spanish, teaching organ lessons, but a lot of binge-watching television. I felt so unproductive, that I casually mulled over the idea of selling my apartment, and moving in with my son’s family, an idea he immediately nixed!

I needed a project!

Where have we heard that before?! A couple of weeks into the New Year, I’ve gotten my answer … and now that my plans have been confirmed, I can share them.

Over two years ago, I played an all-Bach recital at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley, CA on their beautiful Flentrop organ (read about my recital: “Totally at home“) In my time at the church and visiting with their organist-choir director, George Emblom, he at first did not want me to come into his office, but later apologized as we went upstairs to a huge space which served as the music director’s office. You could say it was best characterized in the following graphic:

When I saw the piles and piles of unsorted music and books everywhere, I told George it must be very difficult to get any work done there. Thinking back to the days that I watched hours and hours of home decorating shows, I said to George: “The first thing I’d do is clear the room. Only put back the things you really need!” George then asked if I would help in this project, knowing about my work on the music library of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. (You can re-read my post here: The LCH Music Library is World Class) He said he would trust me to help him sort out all the piles since I am an organist and have dealt with the same magazines, choral scores and organ music in my own world.

I had no idea that he actually took this idea seriously, and a few months later, the choir helped him to take everything out to be stored elsewhere while the room was renovated with new flooring, lighting and other improvements. That was nearly two years ago, and look at the space now:

So next month, I’ll spend nearly two weeks at St. Mark’s doing a “Marie Kondo,” organizing George’s office and keeping only those things which “spark joy!” In case you haven’t heard of Marie Kondo’s “KonMari” method of tidying up, you must be living under a rock—she is a household name worldwide because of her bestselling book: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up; the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing.

Oh, my late husband Carl must be laughing in heaven, with the notion that I am an organizing expert!

In addition to the music office renovation project, I am working on a new all-Bach organ concert which I will be doing jointly with Jieun Kim Newland, so I am back to practicing the organ. We’ll be playing Bach’s concerto transcriptions—organ arrangements he did of concertos by Vivaldi, Marcello, Telemann and Ernst. We will further arrange these transcriptions for two organs—a huge technical challenge but one which should prove to be lots of fun! (and work!)

I am also spending many hours a day knitting an afghan … so now I have no more excuses for being bored or unproductive. Play time is over!