21 Swan Crescent, Pakuranga 1974
Willow, for grieving
love left behind*
The pocket of East Auckland I grew up in was a bland new development bursting with kids. We lived in variations of the same tin-topped weatherboard box on marine-themed streets. We played bullrush and go home stay home under the mortal hum of power pylons and occasionally someone would be dared to climb one and have to be rescued by the fire department.
My best friend Tracey lived on the same street as our school. Her house, down a long black driveway, wasn’t like the others. It was interesting and generous and her family was too. They threw parties and invited neighbours over for drinks in their lounge with the massive stone fireplace and the picture window.
They went on holidays, all of them together, camping and water-skiing. They had dogs, cats, guinea pigs, a caravan and a boat. They were everything our family was not. I spent as much time there as I could without arousing suspicion or concern.
Tracey had a twin sister and two older brothers who were tanned and handsome in that tousled ‘70s way. The boys used to chase the twins and me around for sport. When they caught us, they would sit on us and tickle us till we cried, which was quite exciting. Occasionally they upped their game, formed a runway on the lounge floor with the cushions and made us sprint down it one at a time while they clubbed us with rolled up newspapers, which was terrifying, but also exciting.

Toni and her twin sister, my best friend Tracey
There was always music at Tracey’s house. In summer her brothers opened the windows, cranked the volume and played Bowie, Pink Floyd and T Rex; songs rebounding like a mini-Glastonbury round their garden. One hot afternoon as Tracey and I lay on the grass under the willow tree, I heard the descending piano chords of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I squinted up at the bright river of sunshine through the moving leaves and listened.
This tune has a weightlessness, a kind of slow-mo bounce that never quite touches down. There is a sense of constant motion in two directions at once, trapping us in the soft turbulence of an endless loop. Just as we find some composure in the bridge and verse, the chorus turns up to pitch us back into the heavens again. Uncertainties hang in the air with no resolution. When are you gonna come down? When are you going to land? We meet them as we fall and again as we rise, like the hopeless parts of ourselves we’re unwilling or unable to fix.
The sound is deceptively sweet and clean and when that chorus kicks off, laden with strings, backing vocals and swooping chord changes, it spikes the blood like a sugar rush. But under all the fairy floss, trouble is lurking. There are wrong turns, regrets, situations that are easier to run from than face. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is about escape and it wasn’t lost on me that the first place I heard it was my favourite place to escape to.
My first ever sleepover was at Tracey’s house. I remember watching TV after dinner, stone hearth blazing, Tracey’s parents nestled together on the couch. Everyone except me was watching the screen. I was staring openly at Tracey’s mum and dad. I’m sure no-one noticed – it was a small moment. I was staring because I had never seen parents touch each other in a non-violent way before. At five, it was a revelation to me.
When Tracey and I were in high school, her family moved to Australia. The last time I went to their house in Swan Crescent I was in the living room, surrounded by boxes, watching them pack up their lives. I felt their excitement and their limbo. I concentrated on every feature of the room, the framed view of the garden, filing them in my memory, knowing I would never be back. Tracey kept offering me bits and pieces, things they couldn’t take, but I only wanted them to change their minds and stay.
A year later I quit school to plot my own escape from the suburban cul-de-sac. Tracey and I kept in touch, through marriages, children, death and divorce. Her family still lives in Queensland, so they must have found whatever it was they were looking for. And if I hear Goodbye Yellow Brick Road now, filtered through supermarket speakers or default music on hold – no matter where I am or how I feel – I am handed right back to the safety of Tracey’s family.
© Maria Majsa.
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Great story Maria very evocative and and moving as always.
We had that exact same stone fireplace in my house in the seventies…..I remember playing Elton John’s greatest hits non stop when it came out in 1974 on which ‘Goodbye Yellowbrick Road’ was one of the many hits – incredible to think a ‘greatest hits’ album in the true meaning of the words could come out of an as yet short career. I remember my neighbours moving to South Africa at about that time and me imagining escape from my own suburban cul-de-sac in the North West of England – of course now I look back somewhat aghast at what they were thinking at that time.
Credit to you Maria, you’ve done us proud!!
Tracey Davies (nee Sharrock)
You transported me back to a very happy carefree time of my life Maria, although my tears flowed whilst reading, it is a childhood of which I can be proud. Thank you for the beautifully written words and memories,
We are all very proud of you xx
Another great story, Maria.
This tale brought to mind a line in the film “Stand By Me” when the child narrator says something like “There are no friends like the friends we have when we are eleven years old.”
Didn’t Elton John go through a brilliant period in the early to mid 70’s?
My memories of GYBR are as vivid and as poignant as yours, although for vastly different reasons. Knowing what I do now of your tragic home life as a child, my admiration for you only increases. What I remember of Maria Majsa, was a proud, highly intelligent (without being obnoxious or precocious) young lady, with poise and dignity, grace and humility, who sat atop a horse with straight back and head held high. How well you hid your pain. So happy to hear that my crazy family brought a ray of sunshine into your otherwise bleak life. Thank God for good old ‘Elated Jones’ and his ability to bring back such wonderful memories for both you and I. :)
Where did you find the lines from the poem Meanings of Trees… “Willow for grieving / love left behind” ?
Hi
I found it on the net. I believe it’s a verse from an Englishman’s grave – that’s all I know. Here’s the full verse:
Pine is for leaving, oak is for time
willow, for grieving, love left behind