Author: Mary Elyn Bahlert

I am a spiritual seeker, a seeker who has "taken a drink from many cups." I love to accompany others on the deeper journey to witness to their True Self. Now a writer, photographer and poet, I have retired from full-time ministry as a pastor in downtown Oakland, CA.
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My trusty Royal

Mary Elyn Bahlert

When I left Milwaukee to go to seminary at the end of 1981, I took 2 suitcases of clothes and a portable Royal Typewriter.

I had used that typewriter in high school after I learned to type. All the girls took a mandatory course in which we were taught how to use a typewriter in the 1960’s (that along with being required to wear a skirt). Being able to type with some proficiency – and accuracy, which I can prove now, as I write these words – was expected. And so, using index cards with carefully written notes, along with sources, properly described, I wrote my first term papers on that Royal typewriter. I was good at the writing, which came easily to me.

And I used that typewriter in college. I majored in English literature, and my typing skills came in handy. I was quiet in classes, but I made up for being quiet by being able to write sentences and paragraphs. And I made up for being quiet by being interested in literature: my interest showed in the papers I wrote.

It was Mom’s typewriter. Most of the time, the typewriter sat, covered and locked, on the desk Mom used when she wrote checks or did other business – until I took it over. If I needed to use the typewriter, it was mine. Most of the time, the typewriter took up what was left of the space on the desk – the desk which now sits in the small office my nephew Rainier has for himself at his home in Seattle. When his little girl, Celeste, was an infant, the desk served as a changing table in her bedroom. I’ve told Rainier that his Grandma would be happy to know that her desk was still in use – and by her grandson, of whom she would be proud.

When I left to go to seminary, the typewriter became mine. It sat on the desk in my dorm room, and later in my studio apartment, a third floor walk up in North Berkeley, where my kitchen window overlooked the patio of the Franciscan Seminary next door. On Friday nights, the smell of alcohol drifted up to my window, along with the sounds of laughter and muffled conversation of the aspiring monks below. When I used the typewriter in my studio, I moved it to sit at the table in the kitchen.

When I left seminary and started to serve as a pastor in downtown San Jose, the typewriter moved with me and my husband to Pleasanton. There was a typewriter – an electric typewriter! – in my office in downtown San Jose, and I used that when I was in the office. But shortly after our move to Pleasanton – this being the 1980’s – we purchased our first computer – a little box that had a separate keyboard, and a printer that used a roll of paper to churn out our writings.

And that first computer signaled the end of a long and worthy life for the little Royal typewriter that had served me so well.

Now, that little Royal portable typewriter sits on a shelf in the garage. I rarely take it out, and if I did, it would be to take a look at it again. Instead, it gathers dust. I expect that little Royal portable typewriter to outlive me. It’s a relic from another time, for sure.

beauty, reflecting

My tree

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I grew up with the streets of Milwaukee’s North Side lined with elm trees and an occasional maple tree. In the autumn, the branches that hung over the road, over the passing cars, were bright with color, and fallen leaves covered the sidewalks, making crunchy piles that children would love to march on all the way to school. Dutch Elm disease, which had killed the trees in Europe as early as the 1920’s, took most of the beautiful trees in the 60’s and 70’s.

Although I loved the changing colors and I loved watching for the first buds to sprout into leaves in the spring, I did not know a tree personally until I fell in love with the listing birch tree that stands in front window of our living room on View Place in Oakland.

I like to say, “I love that tree, and that tree loves me.” For as long as we’ve lived on View Place, the listing tree has filled my front window – and my imagination. I wait eagerly for the leaves to sprout, to show just a little, in early spring. I look out at the tree whenever I walk into the living room; we’ve left our front windows – which rise high above the sidewalk so that passersby cannot see us in the house – without coverings. Every early morning, as I sip coffee with milk, sitting on the couch, I look out at my tree. I’m familiar with that tree, with its changing moods, with its beauty and its starkness. And I like to think the tree is familiar with me.

For many years, when I was a pastor in downtown Oakland, I wrote a weekly column for the newsletter that went out to the congregation. I wasn’t aware of my mention of the tree, but from time to time, someone from the church would remind me that they’d read what I’d written, and that I had talked about the tree – again.

“I love that tree, and that tree loves me.” Or, as Joyce Kilmer wrote: “I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree…”

As I grow older, I’m grateful to count among my acquaintances the “listing birch” that stands, has stood, outside my window, now for a large portion of my life. To me, something is wonderful about loving a tree – a particular tree.

It’s the middle of summer, the lushest (!) time of the year, even in the dry climate of the Bay Area. And even now, the tree – my tree – accompanies me. I expect that someday, some time in the coming years, I’ll sit in front of that tree for long days, grateful for the companionship.

My tree, in all its glory! Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 10/2024, View Place

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A moment…

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Mom and I stood together in the checkout line of the local supermarket where she shopped in her neighborhood in Milwaukee. I was home on a visit from the Bay Area of California. We always loved those days together, two “Milwaukee girls” who explored the city, finding new and revisiting old sites.

She didn’t say it to me; she said it to herself. In the line ahead of us, an elderly Asian woman and a little boy, who appeared to be her grandson, stood in front of the checker. We heard the checker ask for some amount of change, and the elderly woman, her hand full of coins, turned to the little boy, extending her hand toward him. He peered into her the palm of her hand and chose a coin or two. She handed the coins to the checker.

“And now he feels ashamed,” I heard Mom say to herself. She had seen the moment, just as I had, and I knew then that it had brought forth a memory of some distant moment in her life. She would have been standing at the checkout with her mother, Feodosia, who had never learned to read, and she would have been the child she saw now, looking into her mother’s hand and choosing the right coin. And she had felt ashamed.

I understood then that my mother had a heart for those who are the “other” in our country. I had always known it, having grown up in a house where we did not speak slurs about those who were/are “other.” I grew up learning to respect those who had gone before and to respect those who were different than us, those whose lives had been difficult in ways I could not imagine, those who had left their land and their people so that I could be standing in that aisle that day, a witness.

And I loved her even more for that moment.

beauty, nostalgia, reflecting, Uncategorized

words drop

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I hold my hand into the night
and words drop – light –
into my palm:
blessed words, delivered from the heart of the ancestors –
before them – from the hearts of others –
all who worked and walked and wondered
as we do now.
I hold my hand into the night
and words drop – light –
into my open palm. —Mary Elyn Bahlert, 5/2025

Where words drop from the sky – The Ridges,
Baileys Harbor, WI photo by meb, 5/2025

memories, reflecting, remembering, Uncategorized

Sue

Mary Elyn Bahlert

At home, I was the big sister. And so I was thrilled when my brother Ronn brought home a friendly and fun young woman – Sue – and introduced her to the family as the “girl” he was going to marry (this was the early 60’s, when young women were still referred to as “girls).” And I was thrilled when Sue, who was the middle of three sisters in her own family, took an interest in me.

Sue was the big sister I had never had. She listened to me and she made me laugh. (Sue and me laughing would play a big part in our lives as the years unfolded). I cherish a vivid memory of Sue and me together in the cramped bathroom of my family’s upper flat on the north side of Milwaukee. We sat together as she cried about an argument she was having with Ronn. More often those days, Sue made Ronn laugh, and Ronn made Sue laugh. As I bring Sue to my memory now, I can see her wide smile and the light in her eyes. She liked me, just as I liked her. And – she would never fail to tell me the truth. Never.

*

Early in their marriage, Ronn had had an accident as he drove alone on a Milwaukee street; he ended up in the hospital for several weeks. As the years unfolded, he would need to be hospitalized again and again. And so one summer, as Sue was Mom to three children under five already – David, Alicia, Vicki Sue – she was about to give birth to her fourth child. I stayed with her in their house in the suburbs of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, slept in her bed with her as she tossed and turned, unable to sleep a full night in the last days of this pregnancy. Ronn was hospitalized again.

Most nights, the two of us would sit together on the screened in porch, talking and laughing in the dark. All night long. That year, the cicadas arrived to fill the air with their loud screeching calls, early in the mornings, just before daylight. The children were still asleep, although we didn’t know when that would change, and our world was just the two of us, facing one another in the dark. Sue was a smoker – she smoked until she died in 2015 – and I listened and laughed to her deep voice as I watched the light of her cigarette go up and down in the dark, sitting there together until the morning light broke the silence that surrounded us.

*

The last time I saw Sue was in the spring of 2015. I’d taken a trip to visit the family in Northern Florida on my own that year, and the day before I left, I went to lunch with Sue and Alicia, her older daughter, who was her caregiver. It seems that a medication that Sue was taking was also taking her memory, and from time to time, she’d stare at me quizzically, trying to recall who I was. Then, at one point in the conversation, a moment of clarity, she said to me: “you’re a minister.” Yes! She did know who I was.

After lunch, I drove Sue and Alicia back home. I got out of the car to give them each a hug, and Sue held on to me for a long time. As I drove away a few moments later, I watched in the rear view mirror as Sue stood, waving and waving.

*

“Sue, Sister, Sweet”

I remember when I first knew you were my sister –
you, sitting on the edge of the claw footed bathtub
in the crowded bathroom of an old Milwaukee flat, crying.
I listened to your tears, and then, I knew:
You are my sister, Sue. 

I remember you, 8 months pregnant – again (!)
I remember your voice all night long
in the dark Carolina night,
the light from your cigarette, up and down, up and down,
the two of us, laughing, laughing:
We laughed until dawn.
During the day, you were Mom.

Years later (in my new life)
you brought me a home-baked goodie
while I was still in bed – insisting that I accept this gift of love!
I remember you marching me to the classical music CD’s in the back
of Barnes and Noble:
You bought me Beethoven.
I listened, all spring long, to the minor notes,
mourning another Sue.

Now, these notes, this mourning, is for you.
I mourn for you.

 I remember – I will remember always –
you waving goodbye (I watched you in the rear-view mirror),
as I drove away from you – for the last time.
“I don’t know when I’ll see you again, Sue,” I said into your silence.

You knew, you knew, you knew, my sweet, sweet sister, Sue. (poem by meb, 2015)