THE coffee reckons we’re insane, because we’ve been gazing at it for five minutes. 

We sit at the wooden table, Kat and I. 

Two old friends, eyes sleep-addled, torsos wrapped with jumpers. 

A chill Dwellingup wind whips through our campsite. 

It glances at the half-eaten pack of Organic Rice Cakes, stirs clumps of fallen honkynuts, and twines around the slender trees, before leaping up to join the symphony of warbling birds colouring the overcast sky.

“That’s long enough,” I mutter. 

I swivel the press into the maw of a cut-in-half water bottle, exert a touch of downward pressure, and watch as coffee droplets start to rain. 

It’s my first time camping in five years. 

“You’re going where!?” several friends asked when I told them about this toe-in-the-water, one-night trip down south. 

“Didn’t know you were the camping type!”

Neither did I. 

But I’m enjoying this experience: planning, packing, Chat GPTing which self-inflating air mattress to buy (I recommend the Comfort 10). 

The satisfaction of stepping back and taking in our nine-person tent, fit for two introverts. 

The moon, hanging huge and low in the sky. 

The bright stars, trembling through gaps in the branches. 

Or is it me doing the trembling? 

Light years away, but close enough to whisper your prayers to, walking solo at night.

This morning, we rambled down to the river. I was talkative, bubbling with whimsy; Kat silenced me with a look and a plea. 

“Dude, I haven’t had coffee yet.”

As I Qi-Gonged under the trees, Kat sat by the river bank, slow-moving water eddying at her feet, eyes cast up-stream. 

I sat down beside her. 

“What’d I miss?”

“I thought I saw a turtle,” she said. 

“But maybe I just imagined it.”

I looked out over the river. 

All I could see was a bunch of kids on the far bank muddling around in kayaks and some non-turtle shaped logs. 

“Come on, let’s get coffee.”

So here we are, at the table; I prepare it and Kat watches; Kat pours and I watch. 

You do a lot of watching out bush. 

It’s different from urban-watching. 

Urban watching is traffic, phones, computer screens and clocks. 

If you’re lucky, you’ll sneak a walk through Manning Park, spot a turtle trekking up from the lake, hear the crows unleash predatory squawks, see kids brimming with delight. 

But your schedule’s waiting for you with a knowing grin: “You’ll be back.”

Bush-watching is different. 

You make the drive and unpack the car and set up your tent and go on your hike. 

You cook dinner and build a fire and wash the dishes. 

You notice a tendril of desire creeping your hand towards your phone, which you’ve wisely stashed out of reach. 

Your insides twist. 

Is that boredom? 

Hard to tell, because modern technology has banished the feeling. 

You look closer. 

Boredom yields to something else, more spacious and generative. 

A realisation: Nothing to do but sit and see. 

A spindly mosquito crab-walks her way across the table-top. 

A wooden teepee lounges against a tall eucalypt. 

Kat brings her coffee-filled plastic wine cup to her mouth, and caffeine works its contenting magic on her face. 

“Kat, that turtle you didn’t see before?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Can you draw it for me?”

She sighs and smiles. 

She picks up her sketching book and moves to a camp chair; she drapes herself in a watermelon-covered blanket and shuffles a rainbow of pencils in her hands.

She sets to work. 

I play acoustic guitar ballads; youthful cries of ‘coooeeeeeeeee’ leap through the forest; the chords from Hungry Heart spiral into the mid-morning air; Kat’s pencils scratch over the page, brow creasing one moment, releasing the next. Nothing needs doing. 

“I drew you a turtle!” she says.

He’s a long-necked gentleman, stylishly dressed in a crisply-tied scarf, peering down at a smiling blue wren, perched close by.

Between them, a cup of steaming, fresh-brewed coffee rests on a tree stump. 

The turtle wants his coffee, but this new arrival has him beguiled. 

“I love it!”

A few hours ago, the turtle didn’t exist. 

Now it eyes a blue wren, wondering whether to share its coffee. I hope it does. 

I hope Kat keeps seeing things that might not be there. 

Underneath the noise, traffic and clocks, there’s a subterranean realm of not-quite-life. 

It’s waiting for us, ready to percolate. 

If only we can do nothing long enough to see it.

by RYAN STEED
FREO WRITE NIGHT
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Sunday November 9, 4-6pm at
Amanti & Co Coffee, South Fremantle