After dinner we often watch a movie on Chris’ old orange computer, which is hooked up to a larger screen.

“I’ll set it up,” Chris says, at which point I know I have another 10-20 minutes because each click on his ancient machine results in spinning rainbows—the distress signal of computers near the end of their lives.

“We could use my computer—” I say, looking over this shoulder. Mine is newer, faster.

“Don’t touch it!” he says, knowing I am tempted to press a button to speed things up, which only confuses the system.

Chris gets a lot of mileage out of old things. Last summer, he retrieved a large set of watercolors he keeps in a closet at my parents’ house, which he bought at a junk store years ago. Watching him swirl and swirl his brush to bring old cracked colors to life with water, reminded of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment with young children, and the power of delayed gratification, and how it led to more positive outcomes in life.

Dealing with old things takes patience, as does dealing with old people, but it also builds patience. On visits to my 86-year-old mother before she died last year, I learned to eat, walk and talk more slowly. At first I got impatient and dreaded my visits, but as my patience grew, I realized Mom was more present than I thought. And I saw interactions I had missed, like the way Grace, who sat across from her at breakfast, slowly slid the newspaper across the table so Mom could read a section. And how Mom reached out her hand to pat the blind woman’s arm, saying, “Hi, it’s Mary. I’m here.” Near the end, I grew to like my visits with Mom, grew to crave them.

Our two-seater couch is snug as we watch the rainbow spin, like we’re in a little kayak. Sprawled across Chris’ lap, Apollo purrs percussively. Then suddenly it’s all systems go and we’re watching a movie, the name of which I’ve already forgotten.

What was my hurry to speed up the process? I have no idea. The point of watching, after all, is to be together.