Elderly Computer

a praise for old technology

Dear Reader,

This writer writes after having finished the last draft of her second book and having gone through her week-long illness ride that made her crawl on the ground. How have you been?

Last night, I killed the pain with painkillers and slept without pain for the first time after many nights. This morning, I woke with a sense of burgeoning vitality after a week of illness and endless weeks of book writing. I am still in my sick bed but today I have power to grab the computer that Ceyla, one of my oldest friends sent me ten days ago, because my eleven and a half year old elderly computer is about to pass away, and to type these words. I get by with a little help from my friends.¹ I really do.

A few months ago, when I thought my computer was dying, Ceyla mentioned that she had a spare laptop at home because her company gave her a new one some years ago. “Why don’t I give it to you?” she said and I jumped out of happiness. Really? Don’t you need it? She did not, it was staying there dusting and aging on its own and she wanted me to use it instead. As a financially stable person and a reliable and loyal friend, she sent the laptop and helped me save quite a bit of money even though she was going through severe health emergencies with her beloved cat.

Computers are expensive things not only for our wallets but also for our planet’s precious resources. Hence I cheered for the possibility of recycling one. And I love the idea that I would be writing my third book with one of my university friend’s computers. Fingers crossed we’ll have a good few years ahead of us together writing and creating.

Ceyla’s generous gesture meant the world to me and it also made me lean into the question of what do I have in abundance and what can I gift to others?²

Apple (Elma) back home after a southern winter, March 2026

This is my beloved elderly computer.

We wrote two books together. We failed to write and miscarried two other books. We discovered many things about our species, about our planet, about our universe. Our minds and imaginations were blown multifarious times. Çakıl, my late cat companion, sat on it, laid all over it, and all around it for years.³ I imagined worlds looking at my elderly computer and typed them as words so others can read and imagine along. It has been with me through some of my highest highs, my lowest lows, my deepest depths. Machines too are companions.

It has been years since its keyboard stopped working. See the pink external keyboard below in the photo above? I have been using it to type for the last four years. Because of that we have been quite homebound but I love and respect my disabled laptop and how it still holds onto life. I could probably write one more book if I use it as a typewriter only but unfortunately Google Docs is dying on me because I cannot update the software anymore. Unfortunately, I need that to work with my editor.

I bought my first laptop when I was twenty-four years old. This is my third laptop. The first one died in an accident at a very young age. I was young, it was young, and it was a strange night that first I broke my toe and then there was a glass of wine.⁴ The second one stopped working out of nowhere. One day I went on a trip, another day I returned and it was dead. I bought the third and last one, in fall, 2014 before traveling to the south of Turkey, to spend the winter there, writing a story and failing to turn it into a book.⁵ This is the first time a computer of mine is retiring due to old age. It will be hard to say goodbye to emektar elma⁶, my veteran computer. It is not with me at the moment. It is back home in Istanbul because it struggles to travel and I struggle to travel with it. Therefore we must wait to be back for its retirement ceremony.

Apple (Elma) and I in the south of Turkey writing the second book, February 2026

My books were written on elderly computers.⁷ Now, they will continue being written on my friend’s hand-me-down computer. This economy nourishes me.

I remember the first time I came across a queue whose end I could not see. It was almost two decades ago in Santa Monica, Los Angeles⁸ in front of an Apple store. People were lining up to buy the latest technology, perhaps it was for the first iphone that came out in 2007, I cannot quite recall, but I remember feeling strange to see so many human beings waiting to buy something so expensive. The United States showed me many shades of capitalism and consumerism. To my luck, I have always struggled to conform and back then, I had a quite intact inner contrarian who encouraged me to follow another path all together from my mid-twenties into my thirties. Yet, like most of us, I too am more or less entangled with this system and I struggle. It is hard to witness that technology cannot “make” us a planet yet it is costing us our one and only planet.

Well, good news is that elder computers and I finished writing our second book on Mother’s day. Not the youngest, latest, genius technology. Considering that the grief of losing my mother and two other important women in my life back to back and my desire to tell stories of mothers and matrilineages initiated me in the path of writing I took note of that beautiful timing… and the next day I vomited three times and slept for about twenty hours. So it is official, La Graine is getting a sibling in 2026. The second book will be published by La Fourmi Éditions this fall.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my relationship with a dear machine. Do you have any machines you love? How old is your computer? I am curious, do whisper, leave a comment, send a pigeon, let’s celebrate our elderly technologies together. Perhaps this too might be a way to slow down and take a moment to reflect before we “advance” as a species.

Coming-Up: Book Signings and Events in France

On May 24th, Sunday afternoon, I will be at the SLAP Festival in Montreuil with La Fourmi Editions, signing copies of La Graine. Swing by, come and say hi, if you like and if you are around.

On May 28th, Thursday evening, La Fourmi Éditions is celebrating their second year as a publishing house, so with my fellow La Fourmi writers, I will be attending to their birthday party. I am told that we will have a talk and a time to sign and meet.

You can find the details on the instagram account of La Fourmi Editions.

Newsletter Whispers

Now that I am slowly coming out of the story universe and out of the writing process, and Ceyla gifted me a computer, there are some whispers I wish to turn into written word and share with you over the summer, if the mystery wills, if the world allows and perhaps even though they do not. I want to concentrate on what or who or where I love or I once loved. Like the first Chinese drama I have recently watched and loved. It was such a beauty.

Gizem Gizegen, 2026, Istanbul, ☉ Taurus ☽ Cancer

1. With a Little Help From My Friends, the Beatles

2. I personally have time, imaginal flexibility and relational freedom to be more available for younger generations of our species.

3. All my three laptops so far have known my late cat companion, Çakıl. She was with me when I bought my first laptop, she was with me when I bought the last one.

4. My current editor claims that she broke my computer back then by placing the wine glass next to it but it was I, who hit the glass and spilled the wine all over the keyboard. Broken toe, broken computer it was a night of misfortunes but I was in good company.

5. It is funny how my elderly computer’s first and last trip were to the south of Turkey. In the first one we miscarried a book, in the last one we wrote a book.

6. Emektar means long-serving, old hand, veteran and elma means apple in Turkish.

7. For the past month, I have finished my last draft on Nathalie Sejean’s elderly computer. It is also ten plus years old and struggles to type some letters but we managed.

8. Where once upon a time I was studying filmmaking.