Category: Uncategorized

community, memories, reflecting, Uncategorized

getting help

Mary Elyn Bahlert

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too”. – William Hutchinson Murray

Every year during early August, my long-time friend Nancy and I choose a good restaurant and meet to celebrate our birthdays – both also in early August – with small gifts and with a good meal and always, dessert – shared. This year, we stayed for a long time in the booth in the dimly lit restaurant where we had finished our dinners and our dessert, talking about our long friendship and our long lives.

Nancy confided in me that through most of her life, she has gotten on most easily with men, and with me and one or two other women as exceptions, she still thinks of herself that way. On the other hand, I find that I have had long time friendships with both men and women, friendships I value to this time in my life.

The role of men in my life stands out in a particular way. Through the years, I have been helped in some way by some good man whose path crossed mine. As a college age woman, I took a semester off before graduation, not clear about my future. I was unclear in my choice of college major, and although I had help through the University, I still took a semester before I would return to graduate with my BA. I was confused, and so I continued to live at home – as I had throughout my undergraduate years – and landed a job in a public relations firm, my desk in a corner of the basement office without windows where other young women my age worked in the accounting office.

The firm had one copy machine, and one day, I found myself making copies as the President of the firm walked up, and as he waited to use the machine. We chatted for a few moments, and in that time, I told him that I’d been at university, but that I’d left before I received my degree.

A few months later, I decided to return to school for the last semester of study, in the fall of 1972. I told my supervisor about my decision, and I prepared myself to give up the job and to find some other part time work to continue to pay for school. When the news of my leaving traveled to the upper offices, where the important members of the staff sat in private rooms with windows, an offer came down the stairs and to my desk. I could continue working at the firm – part-time – as I finished school. A new position was formed for me to be able to work part time. Apparently, the President of the company had heard about my leaving and made this offer, a way to support my receiving my degree.

I graduated with my BA in January of 1973, and was offered a position as Claims Representative for the Social Security Administration, which was hiring that year to bring on enough staff to implement the Supplemental Security Income Program for low-income elderly and disabled folks (the SSI Program – a life-saver for many folks – continues today).

A few years later, I was working as a Claims Representative in the SSA office on Milwaukee’s South Side, interviewing recipients of both Social Security and SSI. When I could, I had accompanied the Claims Representative in the office to a Contact Station where members of the public could file for benefits without traveling to the District Office. And I was called on to give talks to the public from time to time.

What I also did surprises me, even now. When the end of the week rolled around and no more public interviews were expected of me, I’d make my way to the office – the door was always open – of the District Manager. I’d sit in a chair across from his desk and have a conversation, asking about what his work was like, what was difficult, what it was like to be a District Manager.

I expect relationships with my father and my older brother – both of whom liked me – gave me some confidence in myself.

In the fall of 1980, the position of Field Representative opened at the Waukesha District Office of SSA, and I applied for the job. My additional work – public contacts, public speaking – helped me land the job. As did the fact that the District Manager knew me personally. He was happy for me.

During my final year as a Claims Representative in that office, before I received the promotion to Field Rep, another good man, Larry Alt, was my supervisor. One day, Larry told me that I needed to meet his wife, Sue Alt. He thought that she and I could be friends. And after I met her, Sue became an important friend to me for many years. She’s gone now, and I still miss her.

Through the years, other men have lit the path on my way. I’m grateful.

I’m grateful for the positive, affirming friendships I’ve had with men over the years. I’m grateful for the loving father and brother who lit my path in a way they did not intend or understand. As I hear the stories of others, and as I’ve struggled with what I received – and did not receive – as a young person, I see how those relationships have shaped my life. Continue to shape who I am.

Jeff and Me, on the Baltic Sea, July, 2024

Uncategorized

Summer Nights

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Facing the window to the West,
I watch the sun drop into the Pacific –
just beyond my ken –
the sun lights San Francisco as it falls,
its last rays glittering on the towering eucalyptus that frame my view.

Suddenly – a wave of grief –
a balmy summer night
on the shore of Lake Michigan,
my brown summer arms
swinging from the top arc of a Ferris Wheel,
sniffing languid air,
floating above the beat of music,
young people dancing at my feet.
Suddenly –
I am in this darkened room.
The memory, gone.
I sit, in the grief.

Photo, Mary Elyn Bahlert, 7/2020

memories, remembering, Uncategorized

Meeting Diane Keaton

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Barbara and I sat together on a low bench in the Visitor Center at Chichén Itzá in Yucatan State, Mexico. We were waiting while our husbands, Frank and Jeff, worked on the phone with the car rental company in Merida, where we’d started our journey in the Yucatan. It was going to be a long wait. As I sat, I opened up the paperback I’d brought with me from the United States, a book of short biographies about celebrities. Good holiday reading!

From time to time, I looked up from my reading to look over at Frank and Jeff, or Barbara and I exchanged a few words. One time as I glanced up, a slender woman with long brown hair passed in front of us. I did a double-take. It was Diane Keaton – I was sure of it! And I’d just finished reading a chapter on her, a short while ago! I’d read that she was often kind to her fans when she was spotted in public. But that didn’t matter now. I nudged Barbara. “That’s Diane Keaton!” I whispered, excitedly. Barbara looked over at the woman, who had moved away from us, along with her companion. Barbara, also excited now, agreed. We had spotted Diane Keaton!

We were beside ourselves! Barbara and I raced over to our husbands, still working things out over the phone about our car, our transportation. “We saw Diane Keaton!” we giggled, excited, excited! We pointed out the “incognito” celebrity in our sights. “Go over and say hello to her,” my extraverted husband advised. “Oh no – I couldn’t do that!” I whispered. Barbara nodded, agreeing with me. “OK, then” – Jeff took my hand and walked toward Diane and her companion, who were slowly looking at the exhibit along the walls of a room off the main room.

When we got to the room with Diane and her friend, we walked up to her and greeted her, acknowledging that she’d been spotted. I stood for a moment looking at her, as she turned to us. “I appreciate your work,” I said. Then Jeff and I backed out of the room she was in and into the main hall. We walked over to Barbara, who was already shaking her head, saying, “I”m going to hate myself for not going with you.”

Finally, Frank and Jeff worked out some sort of arrangement with the car rental company, and the four of us set out to walk over to see the ruins of what had been a city teeming with life from about AD 600 to AD 900 (thanks go to wikipedia whose information is at my fingertips as I write!). We followed the lines of other people walking around the ruins, as I watched carefully for Diane Keaton at every opportunity. She was not in view at the moment.

The four of us entered a small opening on the side of one of the pyramids and followed the long line of other folks who were making their way to the center, down and in, the path led us, one after the other, close together. At a certain point, I began to feel uncomfortable, and I realized that I was beginning to feel claustrophobic. I turned halfway around, far enough to tell Barbara that I’d have to go back, still using the narrow passageway we’d walked in. She said she’d go back with me, and the two of us simply turned our bodies and walked alongside the line of tourists going into the pyramid.

Barbara is a tall, beautiful black woman, self-contained, shy. When Barbara spoke, we all listened. She had a kind of authority about her. Not that day. At one point, Barbara came face to face – chest to chest, really – with Diane Keaton, on her way in the semi-darkness to explore the pyramid. “I appreciate your work,” Barbara said. Diane Keaton nodded, silent, and she continued into the pyramid. In a few moments, Barbara and I were back in the sunshine.

*

When we returned to the United States, we all went right back to work. It happened that I was set to go off to a retreat of the United Methodist Clergy Women in my Annual Conference, so a day or so after I’d arrived home, I was at the retreat center. The retreat began with all of us – 40 or more – sitting in a large circle. We were invited to introduce ourselves to the group. When the time came for me to speak, I told the story of my “event” at Chichén Itzá. After I’d shared a few sentences, the questions came from this group of serious, work-minded women. “How tall was she?” “Who was she with?” “What was she wearing?” “Was she friendly?” The questions went on and on. My introduction took up a lot more time that day than anyone else’s. I guess my life was the most interesting – for the time being.

For years afterward, when Jeff and I spent time with Barbara and Frank, remembering our interesting journey to the Yucatan, we’d laugh again at how nervous Barbara and I had been. Frank loved to mimic how he remembered the two of us, one time standing on top of a fire hydrant to deliver the story to us again. His imitation of our voices, high and excited like children’s voices, was particularly entertaining. We’d laugh and laugh.

Guadalupe Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 05/2024

Uncategorized

Acedia

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Acedia: spiritual or mental sloth

Monks in their cells in the Middle Ages
rose before dawn to pray.
Instead, they walked that narrow room,
     back and forth, back and forth, all day.
Some called this a sin,
     this rocking in their stiff chairs,
     the unwillingness to kneel, to pray.

The days of cloistering went on eternally, it seemed.

We’ve been sheltering for months,
the agitated monk inside us growing, growling,
longing to be free.
Still he paces, frantic and passive.
Call it a sin.
Call it malaise, a fever.
Acedia has risen from the ashes
to mark this time.



Mary Elyn Bahlert
10/2020

beauty, reflecting, Uncategorized

Martinez Slough

Mary Elyn Bahlert

As the months and then years of the COVID-19 pandemic entered our lives – and then stayed – and stayed – and stayed, we all found ways to deal with the time of social isolation and the range of activities we had come to take for granted: visits to museums, concert venues, movie theaters. And we all survived – for years. As I look back now, it seems a dream. I wonder: how did we do it? how did we journey for those long months that stretched behind and ahead of us?

Jeff and I began a tradition that we did not know would become a tradition, early in 2020, after the quarantine – “sheltering in place” – began in March of 2020. Every Sunday morning – we felt so free of our long years of pastoral ministry, when every Sunday was filled, with worship, with meetings, with visits. Sunday mornings rose quiet and free of schedules. We woke and got our first cups of coffee at 5:30 AM for most of the pandemic, a habit we hold today. On Sundays, though, we thought about where we could go for a walk, a change of scenery, a gift to us as we looked to the long days ahead of us that week.

We walked in San Francisco. We drove to the shore of San Francisco Bay at Brooklyn Basin and walked amid the growing development of apartment buildings there. We walked on the beach at Half Moon Bay. And we discovered the Martinez Slough.

The tide comes into the slough, which is something still new and strange, something note-worthy, to this Midwestern raised couple. When we first drove the 30+ miles to park at the ranger station at the slough, we discovered paths, some along the water, some further in toward the City of Martinez, whose downtown was less than a mile from the shoreline. Some times, we’d watch the water lapping along the beach, the tide in, the tributaries filled to the brim. Sometimes, we’d see the wetlands with the muddy shores and the sea flowing outward toward the Bay. Some days, we’d catch sight of a ship coming through the passage from San Francisco Bay and into the inlet, on the way to Stockton seaport. A train often roared past us after we’d crossed the tracks to the edge of Martinez and parked in the small lot near the water.

One Sunday in May, the sky was filled with kites and the voices of children and happy adults accompanied the floating delights, the holders of the kites’ strings on the shore nearer the Martinez Strait. Every time we walked, we were delighted again, as we passed early morning dog-walkers who greeted us, happy, as we were, to see others out during this difficult time. And every time we walked, we noted the tide – in or out – and called out to one another as we watched the sea birds, the geese.

We talked about going to the slough again today, and we left our home early to drive on the quiet highways, east out of Oakland and north to Martinez. We talked the whole way there, and we talked as we walked. Today we stood on a walker’s bridge and saw the pussy willows; we were reminded of Wisconsin, then.

So this time, when the world seemed to stand still for a time – did that really happen? we wonder now – is behind us. But we continue to go out early some Sunday mornings to that place, where walking and talking comes easily, where the sea breeze accompanies us as we walk.

Martinez Slough, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, May 27, 2024.