My computer died. While there’s no good time for that to happen, when you’re traveling and there are no Apple stores nearby is perhaps the worst such time. I was able to beg, borrow and surf on friends’ machines, but since they didn’t know me as Marvin, well, access was limited.
This is one of the problems with a dual identity. Not that my inability to check my email had any impact on the stories/novel I’ve got out for consideration. When my computer was replaced yesterday, I had no emails at all.
Being computerless, as a writer, was a strange and interesting experience. With one exception, my publications are all online. The files are all electronic. Even though I travel everywhere with a notebook, and a backup notebook, I was cut off from my own work.
Now that I have a new computer, and a much diminished bank account, I was able to recover all my old files. I use a Mac because a Mac is the only kind of computer to use. I could, telepathically, migrate files from one to the other. The desktops are spookily similar.
Perhaps the death of a computer should be the best time to make changes. Delete old files and start fresh. But still, the old ideas are there. They are like friends to me. Old ideas for new stories. New ideas for old stories. Can you ever really just start again?
Travel, although it often inspires my stories, disrupts my habits. I still awoke before God and began writing each morning, much of it in my notebook. It is good—I prefer longhand writing. Who has, however, the time to transcribe?
The old computer, barely functional now, still holds my memories. I can’t bare simply to recycle it. In fact, I have every computer I’ve ever owned is up in my attic. They all have bits of me inside. And I am also, I know. slowly dying. It has been that way since the moment I was born.
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