Friday, May 29, 2020

Before the keys get touched

Man of letters
London, ON
February 2008
This photo originally shared on Instagram
A little more than a dozen years ago, I had a new laptop with a pristine keyboard. Knowing the kind of life it was about to lead, I took a picture before I began to systematically wear it out.

It didn't take long for me to start putting dings into it. Thankfully, it was an HP business laptop, built like a tank, with features that made it particularly invulnerable to abuse. In the four years it served as my primary machine, I lost count of how many times I dropped it or dropped other things on it. If it had a feelings, it would have hated me. But it never stopped working, never failed to deliver when I needed it most.

In the end, I simply wore it out. The keys were supposed to have had a finish on them that resisted that icky shininess that all old keyboards get. It took me 6 months to get the shine, and another 6 to start wearing the letters off, too. So much for that "feature".

I share this photo now because the machines I write with always manage to become more than mere machines to me. They have personalities. Unique quirks that make them absolutely mine. It's a level of familiarity that's especially welcome when it's 4 a.m. and I'm trying to kick some prose out the door before sunrise.

I don't play a musical instrument. My only form of artistry revolves around words and pixels, and I'd hardly call any of what I do art. Yet somewhere along the way, the devices I use as a writer have grown on me. To the point that I take pictures of them.

Because I never want to forget what it feels like during that first moment in the silence of the pre-dawn, when I lay my fingers quietly on the keys and think about what I'm about to write.

It's a pretty resonant way to start the day, and I highly recommend it.

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