Back then my parents owned a three family home on a busy street in the city we call home. We lived on the third floor. I don't remember the frustrations of third floor living, like hauling anything up all those stairs or noisy neighbors below. However, what I do recall is a gentleman who lived next door to us. He was an old man, certainly someone's grandpa and I was fascinated by him. I used to watch him from our back window as he tended his garden.
Even back then I was a flower child at heart. I would long for him to invite me down to help him pick and prune the flower beds. Each time I caught a glimpse of him through our window I would hold the curtains back and wave yelling "Hi, Mr. Neighbor" as brightly as I could, hoping that this time, maybe, it would be the day he'd extend the invite to join him. Each time I'd eagerly call to him he did his best to ignore the shit out of me. Sometimes I would get nothing from him. Not a nod, not an acknowledgement of my existence whatsoever. My three year old self assumed he just couldn't hear me. Other times he would glance up and wave me off saying "little girl, go away". Regardless of his reaction, Mum would always come whisk me away and remind me not to be a bother to him. Each time she carried me off I would try to explain to her that he was my best friend (though I could never figure out why my best friend wouldn't speak to me).
Anyway, at the tender age of 3 you are beginning your practice of memory collecting. Maybe that's why getting the cold shoulder from my neighbor and the night I met Cocaine are both so clear and so vivid. They are some of my very first momentos of this life. The kind that are burned into your mind's eye. The kind that can be triggered easily and recalled at whim.
Cocaine came to my house one night far beyond my bedtime. I remember waking up and wandering out of my Hollie-Hobbie decorated room and looking for my parents. I'm not sure what had woken me. It could have been noise from the street below, it could have been a bad dream or it could have been the "boom" Cocaine makes when it lands in your life.
With sleepy eyes and quiet steps I made my way to the living room. I stopped short in the hallway when I saw that my parents were entertaining friends. They were unaware of me watching them. I saw them laughing about some shared story as they sat around the coffee table and took turns blowing lines. The sound of Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are" filled the airwaves from a record player in the room. I stood there, taking it all in and looked up at a picture we had hanging in our hallway. It was a hand drawn sketch with splashes of color of a heartbroken clown, who had just opened a treasure chest only to find a stack of used buttons instead of shiny jewels. He was crying and holding a drooping sunflower.
I'm not exactly sure how I knew not to interrupt them. It's not as if I was aware that Cocaine was "bad". This was the first time I had to share space with it, so how could I have known? This is a piece of the puzzle I still haven't figured out. All I know is that I knew. I knew that this character wasn't welcome in my world, yet there it was taking up space, hoarding attention and planting seeds on how to quietly wreak havoc on our lives for many years to come.
To this day whenever I hear that song, I time travel back to that moment. Back to the sad clown, back to the unexplained knowing and back to the day Cocaine became an uninvited character in my story.
As far as my best friend neighbor, it wasn't until I was an adult, speaking to my mother about my memory of him when she explained that he was simply worried for my safety. A small child leaning against a window three stories up shouting "hello" was troublesome. She reasoned that him choosing to ignore me was the best way he could keep me safe.
With that, I sat wondering whether he ever knew about the sad sunflower that needed a gardener's attention three floors above.
Tara Mazzeo Jackson
Co-Founder of Storytellers: The Collective,
Curator for Bohemian Living, Owner/Artist of Bungalow Wilde
and Blogger at Bits & Pieces.
Tara is a lover of yoga, bleeder of words and a bohemian city-kid who has a knack for rescuing stray animals.
She has a mean case of wanderlust and you’d be hard pressed to find her without these things:
a journal in her bag, a camera in-hand and sun kissed shoulders.
Tara writes from experience, pain, truth, triumph and that place,
deep down, where the words simmer in emotion.
