Yesterday was humbling. I spent four hours with a lovely woman named Liani Greaves who is a professional organizer. At the task of finding a place for everything and seeing that everything has its place, she is brilliant. And I’m not.

Four hours was all I could take, even in Liani’s lovely company. Although I’m not a pack rat and my home looks pretty sparse and clear to the untrained eye, papers and office clutter and more to do than time to do it are my Achilles heel. I rarely see the top of my desk. Even when I knock off early to tend to each scrap of paper, I find myself holding one or two or half a dozen and wondering, “What do I do with this?”

Oh, I’ve read the books and taken the adult ed courses, and I’d stack my feng shui up against anybody’s. The fact remains: I am dismayed by details. I wish the mail never came (well, checks are nice). And I hold some hope that in my next life, I may be more organized. But that’s then. For now, there’s Liani.

I’ve decided to schedule her for monthly visits. I’d rather spend the money on a long massage or a fancy facial, but the fact is, I’ll have more tension in my body and more lines in my face if I don’t deal with the paper and the miscellany that can overtake the office closet as if it’s alive and reproducing.

In the best of all possible worlds, I would be much closer to pefect: a contemporary wonder woman who could claim my actual gifts and talents and add to them effortless organization, limitless ease with new technologies, an extraordinary singing voice, and the ability to make piecrust from scratch. I don’t have any of those. When it comes to the singing voice, I can’t even carry a tune. So, I sing in the shower. I also struggle with the technology, make piecrust from ground dates and nuts (even I can do that), and get help with the paper turmoil that intrudes on my professional life and saps my serenity.

I’ll bet that a year from now, when Liani has been here a dozen times and gently moves me back into the systematic way of doing things that she’s establishing for me, I’ll be somewhat more organized than I am now. But I’ll never be naturally organized. It’s not an aptitude I brought into this life and it’s not one I’ll perfect in this life either. So I’ll make do, with a little help and a little humility and gratitude that these mega-organizational sessions are only once a month and four hours at a time.