Christiana Soo

Christiana’s piece integrates perspectives from Noongar culture to examine the ways that Australians interact with their environment. This piece was composed in response to Tara June Winch’s ‘Cloud Busting’ similarly capturing the sense of wonder that the protagonist feels towards their Australian setting.

Veranda Watching

Every day an old woman sits on the veranda, watching.

When golden rays begin to stretch over the rusty dirt, she sits watching. Every day, she watches the stretch of farms yawn into the distance and kiss the soft pink horizon. A simulacrum of a world that no longer exists. Every day, she watches the golden sun die into the paddocks. “What a pretty death,” she thinks to herself, “like a dying sun”. As the old woman watches the orange, pink and yellow swirls get swallowed by the inky night, a nostalgic warmth washes over her soothing the aches in her bones. The death of the day makes way for the beauty of night. Her peace was interrupted by a small girl’s voice calling her name.

“Grammy! Grammy! What are you doing?”

She turned in her armchair to face the little girl clutching a pink-plastered Barbie doll. Raising a hand withered with age, she stroked the arm of her granddaughter.

“I’m watching Garreembee1. Come child, what do you see?”

The inquisitive child climbed onto the chair and sat beside her grandma. Squinting her eyes into the distance, the girl ran her eyes across the arid landscape and the sky filled with an array of colours.

“I don’t know Grammy! I see rocks and trees and skies!”

The old woman shook her head. “Look beyond what you see.”

Scrunching up her face, the girl looked again. And again. And again. “I don’t know Grammy!”

A calm stretched across the old woman’s face as she turned back towards the scene in front of her. She imagined the splatter of stars that used to waltz across the night sky. As a child, she had loved gazing at the constellations patterning the midnight sky, but alas, so few stars twinkled nowadays. She used to watch the little lights dance and know her ancestors would protect her. But now, she was alone. She imagined the sun dipping under the horizon and the roos that gathered to watch its descent. She imagined herself as a child dancing along the rocks towards her own grandmother.

“Garminy!2 What are you doing?” she would ask tilting her head towards a venerable old woman sitting on a rock staring at the horizon.

“I’m watching Garreembee. Come child, what do you see?”

She would pad along the dusty ground and lean up cross-legged against Garminy. She would watch the horizon, the flourishing greenery, and the families of kangaroos. She would watch the flaming symphony of colour that decorated the furthest corners of the land. She would watch the warm black night settling in from above and the lights decorate the sky.

“Garminy, I see my ancestors in the stars. I see my family on the land. I see my friends in the sky and sea.”

A smile of approval would crinkle Garminy’s face, and they would sit there together until the life of the night began to awaken.

The old woman sighed. Her memories of Garminy brought great joy but also prodigious sadness at the whole she left in her heart. The old woman watched the land bathe in an orange light, before whispering to her granddaughter the phrase that would change her life.

“Let me tell you of the dreamtime.” ∞

1 The word ‘sunset’ in Noongar Culture

2 Grandmother on the mother’s side in Noongar Culture