Wislenberg, a memory
For many years I frequently travelled to the city of Wislenberg. I met many people there and had a number of great adventures there. I discovered a great deal about myself, and I think my present situation in life several decades older indicates to me that I should write about this part of my life in some small hope that it may be of some use or amusement to others.
I never fancied myself as much of a writer. I’m much more of an artist and musician, and felt that if I could express myself in words, I could dispense with music and painting. As that is not possible for me, music and art dominated my expressive capacity, and writing has always taken, at best, a third or even fourth seat in my life as a medium of expression. So, all this to say, if my prose here might seem sketchy, incomplete, or stilted, please forgive me – this is a kind of memoir and I’m not the most reliable witness to my own experience.
Some time ago, I wrote all this out by hand from memory into a notebook, and what you are reading now is a minimally edited version, as I type this into a word processor on my computer. In other words, this hasn’t been extensively planned or plotted, at all. These are my memories of the city of Wislenberg.
So, first, a material description of Wislenberg. An immaterial description isn’t as easy, as I don’t know anything about the history of the place. However, some few things can be easily deduced from its structure, geography, and architecture. It’s on the east coast. The accent everyone speaks is not Southern United States, and the river next to the city empties into the ocean bay east of the city, and the sun rises over the bay. It’s a small to medium sized place, with a population of (I’m guessing) about five hundred thousand. It, like most North American cities, was settled by Europeans in the nineteenth century at the point where the river and geography form a small bay at the ocean, in a place that would permit docking in a kind of nascent harbour. This area soon formed a downtown that was subsequently surrounded by high-density mixed-use street-car suburbs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some lower density housing was built further out on the periphery of the city in the late nineteenth century as well, especially on the cliffs which afforded a beautiful view of the river.
Across the river are low density suburbs built in the mid twentieth century and a very large park. The park is densely forested, and features a mix of cliffs and beaches. The beaches are not especially pleasant – more riverside strips and plains of boulders and water-worn pebbles. The view of this park from Wislenberg made the low-density housing there expensive and exclusive. Farther west, these large Victorian mansions were cut up into apartments. Group houses and assorted flats sprang up in the 1960s and 1970s as those with some resources moved across the river. There are only a few of the historic docks left downtown, and they are all very touristy and dominated by a yacht club and seagulls.
The public transit in Wislenberg is really very good. Water Street and Broadway have frequent trams. Broadway’s line runs mostly underground. Bus lines operate on all other major streets. Running roughly in parallel with Main Street is the railroad which runs directly into downtown, terminating at the Main Station.
There is also a divided highway and stroad that runs into downtown and then crosses the river over the Big Bridge. There are two bridges in Wislenberg. I don’t recall their formal names, and the locals just call them “Big Bridge” and “Little Bridge”. The little bridge isn’t that small – it’s a few hundred metres long. The Big Bridge is, however, huge. Most of it is a balanced cantilever construction with a tall suspension section in the middle. Overall, it was about a kilometre and a half long and originally four lanes wide and then the lanes were narrowed and the shoulder lane removed. I think the bridge was built in the 1930s and “widened” in the 1970s.
I have travelled all through Wislenberg, but I never memorised its streets. As I didn’t live there, there was no real need. I do remember the streets I used most. Most of my friends there lived on Main Street, Elm Street, Broadway, Water Street, River Road, and Ravine Road. I spent a lot of time at Main and Elm Streets, and along Water Street, and visiting friends on River Road. The city was filled with many different neighbourhoods, especially in the denser residential areas. Some parts, especially the East End of River Road, were quite prosperous. I never found, or more accurately, travelled to any “poverty areas” consciously. My friends weren’t rich by any standard, so perhaps I did go to “poorer neighbourhoods”, I just never perceived them as such.
The downtown area was boring – dreary medium sized skyscrapers and large modern public buildings. The skyscrapers were typical boring modernist boxes – glass, steel, and concrete, and as anonymous as any other downtown one would care to imagine, filled with businesses, parking garages, restaurants, halls, museums, and all the other typical enactments of modern urban architecture design and society. Like so many other cities, cars dominated the landscape. However, the vestiges of the earlier transportation types were evident and had their effect, resulting in a large high density neighbourhood network that surrounded downtown.
The buildings out in the ‘hoods was mostly brick, and typical of the architecture of the 1920s; along the more arterial streets were usually very close or joined three storey buildings with businesses in the first floor, usually a shop or service or restaurant or café of some sort. Some of them became victims of a landlord with no taste in architecture, and would be covered in fake stone applique or badly applied stucco smeared over the brick, with a rusting fluorescent box sign announcing the business – Happy Donuts, Vinnie’s Corner Store, or someplace that sells lousy goods for dirt cheap and its big yellow box sign with its huge red letters in Helvetica Black saying “DISCOUNT”. Off the arterial streets were apartment buildings and duplexes and single-family homes. The housing in the lower density areas tended to be brick, however the older Victorian homes were mostly made of a mix of wood and brick with expansive wrap around porches.
The sidewalks varied in quality – the ones downtown were often in much better shape than the ones out in the neighbourhoods. There was always some kind of construction going on requiring the removal of the sidewalk, resulting in newer sidewalks. Out in the ‘hoods, the curbs were usually made of stone, not concrete, and were often rounded down, cracked, and patched, and the sidewalks were often uneven as the trees that were planted decades ago were never given the proper space and soil, forcing them to push and crack the sidewalks. This was especially prevalent in the more residential sections.
The physical geography of the city was largely rather flat. There were some small hills, which is why some streets were winding or broadly curved. However, these hills are more pronounced on the south side of the city nearer the river, and much more so on the other side of the river in the park.
The areas I spent most of my time there in Wislenberg was around Main and Elm, Elm and Water Street, the Downtown core, and along the western end of River Road. I also spent a lot of time at the river and the park across the river.
I would usually begin my visits to Wislenberg here. On the Southeast corner was a church. Large, made of stone, it looked very Catholic. It had a few steps going up to its large brass or bronze doors and a tower at its front corners. Across Elm Street from the church was a large cemetery, with many large ancient trees ringing its periphery and scattered throughout the grounds. Across Main Street from the cemetery was a typical block of shops and apartments. Between that block and the block across Main Street from the church, Elm Streets makes a quick drop, to go under the railroad. The rail system is important to Wislenberg, as it not only hauls goods and people from afar into and about town, it also moves commuters with a light rail system and the subway / tram system, allowing rapid access across town. I spent a lot of time on that system, especially the subway and trams.
I found that one of the easiest ways to get to the inbound platform and station was to go through a bar on Elm Street, then downstairs and out the back to the rear alley, which put me at the side entrance to the station. To go by way of Elm Street meant walking to the corner at the obelisk, then walking down the hill to the underpass, and then up a large flight of stairs. This was understood at the time it was built, and the side alley entrance was expanded – so it was an oddly outsized entrance that emptied out into the wide alleyway behind the bar.
Even though Elm Street dropped to go under the railway, the railway was also elevated a bit so the underpass wasn’t too low and radically angled, allowing most trucks to pass under the railway’s overpass. In anycase, the station itself wasn’t particularly interesting or ugly really. Just very typical and generic. Ticket vending machines, a service window, pew like seats, a large back lit clock, and copious if never memorable advertising – a run of the mill secondary train and transit station.
Elm street went slightly to the left as it rose back to grade level and after the rail overpass. Elm Street curved about for a few kilometres and ended at Water Street. Elm and Water was a trendy and active neighbourhood, and I spent many happy afternoons there.
Back to Elm and Main, the Northeast corner of Main and Elm, was, as usual, shops and apartments. One of them was the aforementioned bar. I got to know that bar well, as I liked to drink (a lot) back then. The bar was a bit of a hipster hangout – dimly lit, trendy microbrews on tap, and a jukebox filled with the latest and hippest music. One thing I really liked about it was that it was rarely noisy or blaring. It was a good place for a beer or three and good conversation. In the basement was a club / art gallery / performance stage run by the bar owners. I went to many events there – concerts, art openings, poetry readings, all kinds of cultural moments. upstairs, on the street, next to the bar, was a clothing boutique and consignment shop. It was one of the first places and neighbourhoods I got to know in the city of Wislenberg.
I remember walking into the boutique and finding it had an excellent T Shirt collection, many of them painted or printed by local artists. I found that really interesting, and being a naturally gregarious sort, I chatted up the proprietor, a young woman named Emily. We had a great conversation, and I told her I would certainly return soon. The next time I was in Wislenberg, I made a beeline to that boutique. Emily soon became my lover, companion, and my guide to Wislenberg.
She was in her mid to late twenties. She was on the slim side of average and on the tall side of normal – about 125 – 130 pounds in weight and about five foot seven inches in height. She had naturally dark brown hair that she would often henna giving it a rich red lustre. She had a long face with perfect skin, with wide and pleasing cheekbones. Her nose was long and straight with a sharpish point. Her light brown eyes were large and beautiful. They were also slightly asymmetrically set in her face, one somewhat higher than the other. She had a broad smile, a wide mouth with strong white even teeth. She had a preference for black or dark coloured clothing, which contrasted her skin which was pale and smooth. She rarely went out during the day. She was in her shop six days a week, and didn’t open until 11 or noon, so her time was the night time. She was actually rather paranoid about that – almost like a vampire. She always smelled of sunscreen and when outdoors, she always wore sunglasses. She carried herself lightly and yet with great precision. Her singing voice was a perennially out of pitch alto. She really couldn’t sing at all. Her general demeanour was quiet, yet chatty – she rarely raised her voice, and her laugh was more of a high-pitched chuckle. I don’t remember her ever being upset about anything, really – she was exceptionally cool and even tempered. Working in public will do that, I supposed. As a lover she was very passionate – happy to please and be pleased. We, for all of our manifest differences, fit together extremely well.
I would often time my visits to Wislenberg so I might arrive at her boutique around closing time, and then we would make our way to some amusements for the evening, which could go quite late – it’s not like she had to be at work at the crack of dawn. She had many friends and acquaintances – artists, musicians, other shop owners, people from all walks of life. This made sense given that hundreds of people would frequent her shop. Overall, she was rather introverted in her affect, but extroverted in her values. She enjoyed the company of others, while in a given group, she was usually the quietest of the lot. She was also fond of drink – even more than me, and was remarkably resistant to hangovers, which left me envious.
Many of her best friends lived in the south end of the city along River Road and Ravine Road. There were many old Victorian mansions there, all along those roads. The ones closer to downtown were beautifully painted in a proud variety of colours – some vibrant, mostly pastel and were exquisitely maintained homes for the wealthier citizens of Wislenberg. As one headed west away from town, they were less gaily painted, often white, beige, or grey, and these huge homes were cut up into apartments or group living situations. Emily used to live in one of these group houses, and then moved into an apartment further north on Elm, past the railroad.
We would often visit her friends on River Road and went to many fantastic parties in these beautiful old houses perched on cliffs overlooking the river. One group of friends lived in a Victorian that had a gazebo, and bands would play there at parties until the police came. In fact, the parties they had were often closed down by the police for noise complaints at two in the morning. One of the people who lived there, a friend of hers who I believed was named Max, would brag “Yeah – it’s not really a party until the cops show up.”
The club under the bar on Main Street was also a great place for us. For me I preferred it over the parties on River Rd. Those parties were more Emily’s “space” as it consisted of her old friends from childhood or high school – people I liked, but didn’t have the same attachment to as she did. This was fine, of course, unfortunately, I was always “Emily’s boyfriend”, and their conversations often included shorthand phrases, in jokes, or dog whistles, or knowing glances and phrases that referred to memories I did not share and had no hand in forming. Again, this was fine by me – that’s what happens when you have old friends you’ve known most of your life.
In the club, a few of her old buddies would often be there, and she certainly knew everyone there. However, most of these people were more recent acquaintances. So while they could say, “Emily! So good to see you! What have you been up to?” She could introduce me as her boyfriend, and they may or may not know much about her beyond her interests in music and art and her boutique. This allowed us to create joint acquaintances less focused on her previous biography and more focused on present events and future possibilities.
Soon, every visit to Wislenberg was a visit to see Emily, and I was filled with love for her. Her sultry smirky voice. Her full rich wavy dark hair. Her sweet figure and her permanent black T shirt – I thought she was the best. Her apartment was small – just a one bedroom, but the kitchen was large enough for a small table, which allowed the dining area to be her “living room”. What was her living room was converted into her office and painting studio where she worked on watercolours, usually landscapes. I felt that her work was well executed and colourful, but not necessarily well composed. That said, her intentions were singular – she made them because they were fun to make, and that impressed me. She had no pretensions of becoming a “serious artist” like so many of her friends. It was just something she enjoyed.
Her apartment was outfitted with antiques. She loved old furniture and we both wondered what stories they witnessed. Her bed was very high and with four tall posts at the corners. She wanted a full canopy, but the ceiling was too low to accommodate. The windows of her bedroom and “office” faced out to Elm Street, and as her area was a bit higher on a short hill, one could see the towers of downtown from her third floor apartment. I remember the gummy over-painted staircase to her place, and I wondered how the hell she got all this heavy old furniture up the stairs. Even with a team of dedicated friends it would have been difficult, as the stairs were narrow and steep.
Together we spent many lovely idle hours just sitting in cafes on Water Street. We wouldn’t even have to talk that much, we were just so comfortable with each other and happy to be together. And as we were often so closely in tune with each other we would often make the same comments at the same time about the people passing by, and smile. She would rest her head on me, with my arm around her, and we would watch a lovely afternoon wax and wane on her day off. We would then often take the train downtown and go to an art opening, or go to a concert, or yet another crazy bash of a party on River Road, or just wander up Elm Street to her apartment and press our love together deep into the night. Her being such a night owl suited my nocturnal preferences perfectly.
And as comfortable as we were, I couldn’t possibly move to Wislenberg, nor could she leave to be with me. So we kept what we had and were together frequently, at least a few times a week. Any time spent with Emily was a great pleasure. Events in the basement club of the bar next door were typical and frequent. We would often have afternoons with a picnic lunch across the river at the top of the bluffs in the park, with the forest behind us, and the sun glinting off the downtown towers. At sunset they would become hundreds of tiny orange fires that would slowly fade into the gloaming and twilight. Then the drive back across the “Little Bridge” and back to her quiet place in Elm Street.
After about a year and a few months of this I arrived one afternoon and went to her shop to find it closed. And Empty. This was disturbing, as she didn’t tell me anything about her plans to close it up, and it was something that I’m sure she would have shared with me. I walked up Elm to her apartment and found the door open and the apartment empty. No furniture, no note, no nothing – just gone.
I became extremely upset, frantic. I had been there just a few days earlier. All seemed well and happy. Suddenly, there was no Emily. She had disappeared with all of her belongings and the entire contents and furniture of her shop. I went back to Elm and Main and went into the bar by her shop and asked after her. They had no idea where she was or why she closed shop. I went home completely upset and at sea. This was before cellphones, before the web and internet, so if someone left, They Were Gone. I was in a terrible state, weeping and broken – I felt completely abandoned. This had never happened to me before.
It was some time before I returned to Wislenberg. When I finally did screw up the courage to go, I found Emily’s shop replaced by another, run by people who were much less interesting than Emily. The people at the bar said they had no idea where she was, and that if I find her, let them know – she was missed. To this day, I still wonder why she disappeared, why she did it the way she did, and why she never contacted me again. She had my phone number and address. She could have dropped a note, left a message – anything. She never did. She just disappeared.
After that, after losing Emily, my visits to Wislenberg were fewer in frequency, if still extremely fun and vivid. People watching on Water Street was still an amusing pastime and a nice way to burn a day. There were still galleries to visit, bars to frequent, and a parade of sunsets reflected in the fiery glass towers of downtown. Wislenberg continued to hustle and bustle. I remember countless hours spent on the subways and trains, watching the lights and walls of the tunnels smear by.
Occasionally, I’d run into one of Emily’s friends and they had no idea where she had gone. I remember speaking with her high school chum, Max, and he was equally puzzled and hurt by her disappearance. It was nice to see them again, and a few times I ended up at the same crowded noisy parties on River Road, in some old grey Victorian mansion. For some reason, that still remains a mystery to me to this very day, how everyone ends up in the kitchen. This would remind me of the old song by Jona Lewie, “You’ll Always find Him In The Kitchen at Parties.” It was a song that Emily also knew and loved, and we would laugh and sing the title together at such events, usually swilling beer in someone’s kitchen. Only, she wasn’t there to sing it with me anymore. Sometimes there would be cookouts in the backyard overlooking the river. The smell of barbecue would hang in the air and music would blare from a portable stereo, and people would play cards, horseshoes, and charades. And as the alcohol flowed, the volume increased and around 2 AM, the police would show up and shut everything down. There was always a great sense of joy and mischief with this fun nutty crowd in Wislenberg and my times in Wislenberg fell into a comfortable rhythm. Eventually I would walk through a neighbourhood feeling lighter and a little more “at home” in Wislenberg amidst the crickets and crows. It became even more of a second home to me.
There were many other adventures and relationships I experienced in Wislenberg, but Emily was the most important and intimate of them.
Many years passed, and my visits to Wislenberg slowly reduced in number and intensity. One evening about 10 years ago, I found myself in Wislenberg again. I came out of Main Station downtown and walked through the huge neighbouring carpark. It was a grey and cool day – and conspicuously quiet. I walked out onto the street and there was no traffic to be seen. At first, I chalked it up to being Sunday. I went to my favourite café near the station and oddly, it was closed. The 7-11 was closed. There wasn’t a single thing open. Everything was shut down. The street lights were all red and blinking. It was as if the entire population of Wislenberg had left, like Emily had left so many years earlier – completely and without warning.
I was completely shattered – my second home, my “happy place” of Wislenberg had been abandoned. So I left, too.
I didn’t go back again for a few years. When I did, it was back to “normal” – full of life, and vibrant. The last time I went there, I was with my wife, Beth. I showed her all my old haunts and places – we walked past Emily’s old shop, which was now another clothing shop run by an entirely different bunch of people. We went to the bar next door, had a few drinks, and I showed her the secret staircase that was the shortcut to the train station. We walked under the railroad and up Elm towards Water Street. We walked past Emily’s old building – it looked the same, and made our way to Water Street. At the corner was a jewelry / nick-nack shop. We went in and Beth bought a very beautiful necklace that was like ivy, only made of copper. We sat at the café across the street and watched the people and traffic go by. My friend Jake walked by and saw us and it was great to talk with him. He had just opened up a music school on Water Street and was excited to get that rolling. He couldn’t linger, though, he was due there in a few minutes. That wasn’t the last time I went to Wislenberg.
The last time I went there I felt this enormous and oddly pleasant weariness. Like I could stay, but probably won’t. I went to the cliff in the park, and laid in the grass looked at the bright blue sky, smelling the earthy woods nearby, and birds chirping in the gentle sun. I got up and looked at the Victorians across the river and ravine. I had such mixed emotions – mostly pleasant, as most of my memories of Wislenberg were pleasant. Some sad, as some memories were sad, as being ghosted by Emily decades earlier was so hurtful. But I had made peace with her loss. I figured, if I ever ran into her in Wislenberg again, I’m sure my heart would be in my throat, even as she would have a lot of explaining to do. Still, I would love to hear why she left Wislenberg behind. I thought of all that as I gazed upon Wislenberg. Wislenberg showed me that I need a “home base” – a place where my heart and love are met with heart and love. That for me anything personal and intimate that’s part time doesn’t really work. That I dislike being abandoned, and how being abandoned is tough, but abandoning is harder – disappearing can happen for many reasons. They’re often bad reasons, people are often cruel. And sometimes, they’re for good reasons – merciful, even – sometimes to give people what they want, you can’t be there for them anymore, and the only right thing to do is to disappear. It’s a dark and horrible gift. I wonder if that’s what happened to Emily.
It’s called Wislenberg because my daughter invented a country she invented called Wislenberg. She said that my dream city was a lot like her country, Wislenberg, so I asked her if I could use that name and she said, sure.
I have never met or dated anyone like Emily. She was truly one of a kind. It was weird in my waking life to think that I had this fabulous girlfriend in my dreamland. When she left I was puzzled in my waking life, but it didn’t really occupy that much time or emotional space, because it was “just a dream”. That I kept going to Wislenberg after her disappearance was also curious to me, and in the early 2000s the intensity and vividness of the Wislenberg dreamspace intensified. Then in the early 2010s, it tapered off and has largely disappeared. I rarely find myself there anymore, and when I do, it’s more of a “pro forma” type of typical dream – the vividness disappeared – it seemed flatter and less involving.
Dreams with Emily were very pedestrian, but so vivid as to be memorable and compelling. I had several other “nodes of intensity” after Emily left. However, they were all very different and much more dreamlike, although some of them were also very vivid. I will write them out someday soon. I tailored this report around Emily as she was a compelling central character in Wislenberg some 25 years ago. Much else also happened there that I left out to keep focus on a simple story about Emily.
I continue to have a fairly constant lucid and vivid dream states. Some of them have been quite compelling and have influenced my waking life a great deal. I should also write about them. I feel that the writing for this particular report is a bit flat – this was on purpose. As dreams, even vivid or lucid dreams, can be intense and compelling, there’s often a bit of abstraction and random incidence that is missing. And that was true of Wislenberg – it was always a Dream. Some of the later experiences were more like visions – completely convincing and captivating – the random incidences and multisensory input (standard fare for a waking state) were also present, and I should also write about them. Some people say “there is nothing more boring than listening to the dreams of others”. I think it depends on the dream and the dreamer’s dreaming. Sometimes I wonder if we don’t have enough compelling dreams to bring us to a better and more resilient state, one that we can take refuge in when lonely and guide us to a better world.
Henry Warwick is an artist, musician, and professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. His music can be found at bandcamp.com. He is also the director of the online Music Museum, at music-museum.net.