Uncategorized

On Martinez Slough

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I expect that most of us who have lived through – or are living through – the “Covid Years” since March of 2020 have stories to tell. Some of the stories will be about times of isolation, times when holidays were lived through with phone calls instead of dinner around a table with loved ones, times when groceries were delivered to the door, when the PBS Evening News on Friday afternoon included the number of recorded deaths across the country that week, times when people discovered new ways to work, to connect, to cope.

Jeff and I remember fondly those long evenings when we would get into one of our cars and drive somewhere in Oakland we had not seen before, a new neighborhood, a new view, perhaps. And we remember those early days of 2020 when we sat in a circle, scarves thrown over our shoulders, in our yard, with good friends. We had a way to see each other face to face, and we were grateful for those times, for those friends. Each day seemed the same: the alarm beside our bed going off at 5:30 am, coffee together as the sun came up, an early morning walk in St. Mary’s Cemetery, where we came to know some of our neighbors for the first time, the streets – once filled with lines of cars waiting at the stop light – quiet. We discovered for the first time some of the treasures of living here in the Bay Area.

And we discovered a place we love to walk even now, a place we like to take friends, as we introduced our friend Ron to that place today: the Martinez Slough. Martinez is a small city about 20 miles to the North and East of Oakland, through the tunnel and past the satellite city of Walnut Creek, along the highway that runs through the Valley and on to the Sierra, several hours to the east. Martinez is an industrial city, and the hills which surround Martinez often fill with steam from the petroleum refining and chemical manufacturing companies that surround the city proper. Martinez, on the southern shore of the Carquinez Strait, sees the tide come in and go out, marking the days, marking the passage of time.

And along the Strait, we discovered a walking path that is home to the shore birds and other creatures as well as to the humans who walk there along the level path. People are often friendly when we pass them on our walks, and we stop again and again at the site of a ship wreck – more of the ship visible to our eyes as the tide goes out. The paths further from the water are rutted and uneven, but along the water, the path is most often free of debris, easy to walk.

In the spring of the year, the kites of people from the area go up in the Park that lines the shore of the Strait, colorful kites, and the children and daddies holding the strings are colorful, diverse, too.

During the COVID years, we liked to leave our house early on a Sunday morning – free Sunday mornings remain a luxury to us, two retired preachers – to drive to a small parking lot across the railroad tracks from downtown Martinez, to leave our car there, enjoying one another’s company, and to walk the paths, chatting with one another, greeting other human beings, enjoying the air, the green, the blue of the Strait, the ships coming and going, docked for a day or two, the sound of traffic on the Martinez Bridge – we can see from the shore! – just a soft buzz in the air.

There’s a new train station in Martinez, a block away from the parking lot where we leave our car, and sometimes we wait to cross the tracks as a passenger train makes its way to the East, on its way to the Valley, to the Sierra. Every time we pass the train station we remind each other that we’d like to take the train from Oakland to Martinez – some day (we haven’t, at this writing!).

As the COVID years continued, we discovered a Farmers’ Market on Sunday mornings in downtown Martinez. Jeff made sure to take a cloth shopping bag from the car to fill with goodies – fruit, fresh vegetables – at the market. Caramel popcorn, a favorite for me, is fresh-popped and sold by the bag, which I carry with me to the car, and which both Jeff and I devour, all the way home.

*

Ron, our companion today, is an experienced hiker, having hiked with his wife on paths around the world, but the Slough was new to him; we like to introduce this gem to friends who visit us from other places. Each person we take finds something in particular to like at the Slough, as we have.

It’s been over 5 years – 5 long years – since the world was introduced to COVID, a staple in our experience now. Our lives have changed, and our lives have remained the same in many ways, over those 5 years. Still, it’s always a new pleasure to walk the trails at Martinez Slough, enjoying the path, enjoying the air, the light, the shore birds that fly away when we come near, enjoying one another.

At Martinez Slough, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 8/11/2025

Uncategorized

You were little

Mary Elyn Bahlert

You were just little when you started to walk away
from all you knew,
when you left Mama and Daddy in the past
and used your bright sight to peer into another way,
     another path, another road to another life.

You were just little when the spark in your large eyes
lit the way, showed the door,
looked into the faces of your teachers and knew them
     as you knew you.

You were just little when you made invisible notes on paper –
     – not to give away the sacred secret you held in your belly –
     when you charted the path even you did not know for sure you’d travel.

You were just little when you began to say goodbye to the legacy
     the ancestors had given,
     when you knew you’d always love them with their faults and their virtues,
     when you knew you’d have to take another way that wasn’t easy for you,
     walking alone without a map, without a hand to hold yours.

You were just little when you smiled your last smile at the doorway to the ancestors,
     when you told them you’d take their dream to safety,
     you’d walk in worlds they would not know, could not see.

You were little when that part of you took shelter in your darkness, 
the glimmer of hope which lit your way watching,  
     watching, watching for the light.  
The light that lights your way, now, now, now…  

poem, Mary Elyn Bahlert, 8/2025

-Mary Elyn Bahlert, 08/2025       

Mary Elyn, 6/18/1951 – photo by Mom, Mary Bahlert

Uncategorized

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

Uncategorized

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.