Dirty Plates and Pristine Screens

Daily writing prompt

Write about your first computer.

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The trick about memory is how often difficult events from the past get stacked high like dirty plates waiting for their place in the dishwasher. But I will ignore the stacked plates for the time being and just focus on the question.

My first computer was a Commodore. I also had a printer, I think. In my upper flat, I had a desk where the computer sat and then a long table, the sort of table the church ladies would use for a potluck, positioned at a right angle. I was in graduate school, so all my books, assignments, papers, and notes were on this long table. My desk was a work bench with a metaphorical vice and hammers of all sizes.

It was a very hard time. So hard. My life was messy, disheveled, and sometimes scary.

Like now, though, I loved my computer for its blank white page, its blinking cursor, and its open invitation to correct and revise. On my old Commodore from decades ago and on my current not very old Dell, I can create order, put words on a page, stitch them together just so, then rip out the stitches and start over. There are never any erasure marks. I love that.

There are still dirty plates, but I don’t let them get stacked up like I used to.

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