Tag: memories

memories, reflecting, Uncategorized

Downtown

Mary Elyn Bahlert

“When you’re alone and life is making you lonely,
you can always go downtown
When you’ve got worries,
all the noise and the hurry seem to help, I know, downtown…”
Words and music, Tony Hatch, 1964

The words and music drop into my head and I can hear Petula Clark singing the melody of “Downtown” as I sit down to write, today. And I’m remembering the adventure of going downtown, along with a friend, during my high school years. That must be when I fell in love with cities.

Linda Andersen and I took the number 23 bus from the North Side of Milwaukee to 6th and Wisconsin Avenue on a Saturday afternoon, when we were juniors in high school. I’d known Linda since Junior High Days. Like me, she was a product of Milwaukee’s North Side, and like me, she was a student at Washington High School. Unlike me, Linda was an only child, and her mother worked – unusual for the kids in my working class neighborhood. Linda was a nice girl, quiet, smart. I liked her, although I have never counted her among my really good friends from that time. Even so, Linda was the friend who was with me when we had our adventure in downtown Milwaukee.

After we exited the bus at 6th and Wisconsin, we walked East along the street, whose sidewalks were still filled with busy, fast-moving folks in the 1960’s. We stayed along the South Side of Wisconsin Avenue and walked over the Wisconsin Avenue Bridge to the more upscale part of Wisconsin Avenue between the Milwaukee River and the shore of Lake Michigan. On the East side of the Avenue, the sidewalks were wider and the businesses more expensive; certainly I knew that my people would not shop in the stores there. On the North side of the street on Wisconsin Avenue stood the Pfister Hotel. To me, the Pfister was the place for rich people who came to Milwaukee to stay. Years later, on our wedding night in 1984, Jeff and I spent the night in the honeymoon suite at the top of the Pfister, looking out to the East from our room as snow fell over Lake Michigan; it was the first day of spring (Wisconsin-style).

We walked over the bridge and stopped to look at the Marine Bank – 111 East Wisconsin Avenue -,newly built along the River. Next to City Hall, the Marine Bank was the tallest building in downtown. We were excited. We looked at each other and walked into the building. No one questioned our being there. We made our way to the elevator and hit the button for the 22 second floor. We had heard that coffee cost $ 5.00 a cup to drink at the restaurant at the top of the tower. We never got to verify that, however.

As soon as we’d made it to the top of the Marine Bank, we took the elevator right back down to street level, walked back out onto Wisconsin Avenue, and continued our adventure, walking all the way to the shore of Lake Michigan, before we found the nearest bus-stop and waited for the 23 bus to take us back home to the North Side.

I didn’t know it then, but my world was beginning to grow – just a little bit. I’m a city person, through and through. Jeff calls me a “city girl.” I like to say that you can drop me in a city anywhere and I’m comfortable. As I write this, we’re back only a few weeks from a trip to Japan, where I spent a lovely morning walking through the busy streets in Tokyo, blocks from our hotel, alone. That walk was a high point for me.

It’s safe to say that all adventures begin somewhere, and with a few steps. My adventures began then.

Walking in Tokyo, March, 2026. Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert

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Showing up

Mary Elyn Bahlert

If I had to – during these years of my life – think about what qualities I think are important, in myself and others, I would choose one. I’ve called the quality, “showing up.”

In my mind, in my memory. are many moments when a friend walked beside me, or a friend sat listening to me, when someone – an elder, a good friend, my mother – and said something that has stayed with me, and even been a guide for a time in my life. I’ve been blessed with good friends my entire life.

I was walking from my mother’s grave on a cold, cold day in February, 2001. A small group of friends and family who had gathered at the funeral we held for Mom in Milwaukee also walked with me to her grave. I called to Joanne at the last moment to join me in throwing earth on the casket before she was buried. She nodded and came to my side, and together we attended to the ritual, before we walked away to leave the gravediggers to their work. They had to work hard that day, I’m sure, to dig into the frozen earth.

The moment I remember most is that Vicki – a friend since high school days at Washington High in Milwaukee – walked beside me, and in her soft, kind voice, said: “You had neat parents.” I have not forgotten her presence, and her kindness. Vicki had lost her own parents when she was young, and in a way, my folks took her under their wings, by their presence. My parents had shown up for her, also. All these years later, Vicki and I are still friends, across the miles, across many changes, across all that life has brought to each of us.

I remember the evening Jeff and I were married at Calvary United Methodist Church in Milwaukee. We were married on the first day of spring, March 21, and in true spring fashion, Midwest style, there was a snow storm. Also in true Midwest style, the sanctuary was full that evening, in spite of the weather, in spite of the late hour. Good friends brought their children, some to be present at the first wedding they would attend. I remember that a whole sanctuary full of people showed up – some who I knew, and others known to Jeff, but not me. I remember the moment when both of my parents walked up the aisle with me to where Jeff waited. All of those people, many now no longer with us, showed up to witness to our marriage.

I’ve moved a long way from Milwaukee, and I still keep in touch with many friends from my childhood and young adult days in the Midwest. As I write, I see their faces, I remember moments when they showed up, too, not only when there was a snow storm, but in good times and bad times. Sometimes all we need is for someone to show up.

I recall times I failed to show up, and lost a friend.

As I write, I can see the faces of other loved ones, of other times. I have a favorite photo my mother with her brothers, Johnny, Mike, Pete, standing at the graveside of their sister, Ann, in Milwaukee. Johnny and Pete had come a long way, from the Bay Area of California, to stand at the grave. And they had traveled to Milwaukee just a couple of months before to be present at the funeral of their mother. On the photo, taken in the cemetery, my mother had written: “and now we are four.” I expect that it is the last – and maybe the only – photo of them together.

As a pastor, I think I began to value more the importance of showing up. In my mind’s eye, I can see clearly the full sanctuary on Lake Merritt on the day of the wedding of two women, the gathered community filled with joy. Not long after, the sanctuary was filled again for the memorial service for one of the women whose wedding we had celebrated together in that place. In my mind’s eye, I am standing again at the front of the church, on the chancel, as I witness the faces, and even more, the presence of the gathered community. I had stood there, fighting back tears of my own, before I walked down the aisle to stand at the door of the sanctuary.

When Jeff and I go now to be present at the memorial service for a friend or colleague, and as I prepare, I remember the importance of showing up. As I prepare, the faces of those who have shown up for me through my life often come to mind. For as long as I can, I hope to show up, too, for others.

I am always grateful.

Over the years, I’ve learned that I also need to show up for my friends, my beautiful plants. This plant has been with me since 1998. Sometimes I’ve failed to show up – and she shows it! – but she has always patiently returned. Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 2026

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winter

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Winters were tough – cold, with lots of snow – when I was a child growing up in Milwaukee. Many of my memories include cold, gray skies, and snow. Although climate change has affected snowfall in later years, I recall vividly when I lived on Martin Drive in Milwaukee, in an apartment that came without a garage. Winter mornings, as I prepared to drive to Waukesha – west of Milwaukee – I’d often have to start the car, run the engine, and get out to scrape ice off the windshield before I drove away from the street – hoping I’d be able to get back into a car already warm, hoping that I’d make it to Waukesha without running into a pileup.

Ugh.

And as I scraped the windows, I remember clearly thinking, again and again: “who would live in this climate?” Maybe I was planning ahead – unknown to even me – for another future.

Today, a headline in the New York Times reads: Record Snowfall Slams New England as New York Digs Out.
Ugh. I can relate. And I’m grateful to have had a busy morning here in Oakland, running a list of errands as I enjoy a sunny day. Again. We’ve had a week of rain, and the forecast is for more rain this week. We’re always grateful for rain, even in years when the rain is unrelenting. The Bay Area is not “sunny California,” which I quickly learned during my first winter, 1981-1982, an El Nino year. Instead of sunny days, I walked all over Berkeley in the rain. I had my mother send a box of my clothes that I’d failed to pack when I left Milwaukee. I needed clothes suitable for rain.

But this winter we’ve had plenty of rain, and another storm is on the way. It’s about time for spring to arrive full force, as the neighborhood trees, already budding, call out.

But I miss the snow, sometimes. I miss those wind-less snow falls, when the snow falls straight from the sky and leaves a blanket on the streets. In one memory, I watched late into the evening the snow fall, gentle, onto the lawn in front of my apartment building. Some memories of snow are gentle, like the snow.

And I don’t miss the times I skidded to a stop at a stop light – or even on the freeway, driving someone else’s car. Ugh. Ugh.

Spring in Oakland – photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 2/11/2026

memories, nostalgia, remembering

Magic

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I suppose that what I miss most during the holiday season – besides all of those before me who have passed – is the magic. And I suppose the magic has been gone now, for a long, long – long – time.

There was a certain magic to bringing Christmas to the people of a congregation when I was an active Pastor. I loved the liturgical seasons, and I loved to hold onto Advent for as long as I could – a feat that was impossible to the folks who came to church: they wanted Christmas season to begin – they wanted to sing all the old carols we all know by heart – as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes had been cleared away.

“But there’s Advent” – I’d try to win them over – “a liturgical season of its own, and a season that is longer than the Christmas season itself” – to no avail. But I did love the music, the old, old music we love so well. I tried to hold off on the congregation singing the Christmas carols until the four Sundays of Advent had been honored. But no. It didn’t work – not even once.

To me, even the season of waiting – of the Coming of the Child – is as rich as Christmas – call it the Arrival of the Child – itself. The Coming is filled with something: hope, expectation, longing – all tangible, all filled in themselves with a reality that we have all lived at some time in our lives.

The magic captivated – captivates me.

I have a memory of my childhood that is still a mystery to me. It was Christmas Eve, and I was in bed, in the narrow room I shared with my little sister, Suzie. Maybe she was already asleep. My bed was pushed up against the wall with the window. I could hear Mom and Dad in the living room, only a few feet away, shuffling around, making things happen. Like tradition in the Old Country, they were decorating the Christmas tree which Suzie and I would only see in all its glory for the first time on Christmas morning. There was always a layer of ice on the second story window, the cold of Milwaukee’s winter coming through the storm window Daddy had carefully hung in autumn. And on that Christmas Eve, I heard the bells – outside my window. I heard the bells of Christmas! I raised my head from the pillow, looked out into the cold, dark winter night. The only sound I heard then was the rustling of my parents in the next room.

The magic was gone. As quickly as it had arrived – gone.

And I fell asleep then in anticipation of Christmas morning, when, in the old European way, we would open our gifts around the decorated tree, the gifts that had arrived – mysteriously – sometime in the night.

Magic! photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2025, View Place

memories, remembering, Uncategorized

Something’s always missing

Mary Elyn Bahlert

One of the most poignant emotions, to me, is the feeling that something is missing. I expect the feeling is one of loss, or maybe nostalgia. It’s hard to put a finger – a word! – on it, but it’s there, a feeling that sticks to my insides, that doesn’t go away. Something is not quite right.

I think it’s the temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s that betray this time of year, the precious days between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. In Milwaukee, dark blue skies hanging over colorful trees of autumn give way to a bleak gray that marks the coming of the end of the year, of the beginning of months of cold, cloud-covered skies, of cozy homes, of night coming on early.

And I’ve lived in this temperate climate for most of my life, but the longing in me still comes on strong in late fall. After Thanksgiving Day, Jeff and I go out together to a Christmas tree lot to pick out a newly picked tree, take it home and begin the decorating as soon as the tree arrives. We love the lights that light up the early darkness each evening, and I move myself from my study into the living room, as often as possible. The pleasure of this season lasts for such a short time: the intense longing that accompanies the season will give way to the closing of the year. As a pastor, I loved bringing the Christmas story and the Christmas songs to the gathered community, often to a community of folks I did not know well, on Christmas Eve; now, I enjoy the lights and the early dark of the season alone, with Jeff. We seem to bring nostalgia into the house with the Christmas tree we’ve carefully picked out from a local business, always remembering the cold evening of a long ago December when my Dad would take a long time to pick out the best tree in the lot to take home to our cozy flat, carrying the tree up the narrow staircase to the second floor where Mom’s holiday baking filled the air with sweet smells.

All of these memories come to mind, as I sit near the tree. I like to play Christmas music on my iPad – quietly – as background to the moments we cherish now.

Before the end of the year, we’ll sit together in the room with the tree and remember moments of the past year that are highlighted in our memories. Jeff will write a list of what he intends to accomplish in the year ahead. I’ll remember those who are gone now, most for many, many years. It’s that time of year.

Our tree, waiting to be dressed for the holiday!

photo, Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/1/2025