By Susan
I’ve worked on the same computer, a Dell Precision M90 laptop, since
June of 2007.
When it came into my hands (through a job change,) I was
thrilled with it. It was large, and sturdy, and had capacity. I liked that idea of capacity—it felt like potential.
Energy. Oh! The things I would do with this computer! The work I would produce,
the journals I would pen, the novel I would write.
And I did. I wrote miles of words. I created volumes of
spreadsheets and P&L’s and wrote innumerable emails. I cleaned it of viruses
when she became infected. I once paid a computer tech $100 at a Las Vegas
convention when her latches broke and she refused to open. I carried her
everywhere… around the country for work, and eventually to Ghana for each of my
trips there.
I defended her Dell-ness against Mac snobs. I kept her close
even when her DVD drive mysteriously stopped working. As technology changed, I
accepted that my machine was no longer young, no longer fast. I was okay with
the fact that I couldn’t Skype on the
Dell without an external mic and camera. I dealt with it when iTunes crashed
daily, incapable of meshing with her PC bones.
I kept her close to my heart.
After all—I’d written my first novel on that machine. It
housed a decade of photos of my children as they grew. I had a lifetime of
music—every CD, download, and song I ever wanted to hear—burned into her
systems.
And then, last Monday night, she began to cough and sputter.
Not just a cold—I thought. I could tell she was nearing the end. I rebooted. I
called a friend for support while she attempted to revive. I quickly fed her a memory stick, hoping to
pull my photos and all my notes from the novel’s creation off her hard
drive. I said a little prayer up to the
god of technology, to please spare her life.
By 2am, I was at the end of what I could do for her. I
stumbled to bed, bleary-eyed and weary, and waited for morning to come.
I didn’t sleep, knowing it was hopeless. My novel- I kept thinking. My photos. That’s when I realized that
it wasn’t the computer I grieved, but the contents. The soul of my
machine. I finally closed my eyes and
slept—albeit briefly—prayerful that the soul of my machine was intact.
The next day was easier than I could have hoped. A dear
computer friend helped me make sure I’d saved the majority of my files, and has
even offered to see if he can salvage the remaining files if I agree to pay him
in beer (I can do that.) I breathed a little easier when my husband agreed that
I needed to buy what I wanted and what I needed—not to merely settle for a low
end model that would disappoint me down the road. I needed a machine I could
love as much as the M90. Possibly, one I could love even more.
So I bought a MacBook Pro.
It’s a completely new body for the soul of my work, but I’m
pleased to say it only took about a day to feel comfortable with the
changes. Beyond the first night, I
didn’t mourn the Dell—because the heart and soul of my work was still with me.
The soul of my work carried on.
So whether you write in a notebook, on a computer, or on
your arm, keep the spirit of your work close to you. Don’t worry about where
you house it—because it’s the writing that counts.
You're hilarious...
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