"My Dearest Allie. I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I'll be seeing you. Noah"

* * *

It's no secret to anyone that I cry in movies. I mean, if you know me a bit beyond the 23-year-old kid who's always trying to crack jokes, saying something stupid or even swearing with a cheesy smile, you should know that I can cry reading a book, listening to a song or, especially, watching a movie. Not thanks to my father's influence, I must say.

But lately I've watched three movies which sent me straight to what a good friend once wrote, about how lovely it is to see old people who are still in love. The movies were El Hijo de la Novia (The Son of the Bride), Elsa y Fred (Elsa & Fred) and The Notebook, and I have a feeling from now on they are to be called "Old Love Triology", but "old" being a hell of a good word. It is, indeed, beautiful to see how some people can resist time, and even though clearly their bodies and their minds can't, their love can. Funny enough, such movies also made me think of a quote I once read in a book, which I keep in the same place I put it 6 years ago. The sentence, which entitles this post, is a German proverb, and is very true in the the first and the last movies, since Elsa y Fred show how older people, those who are supposed to be "done", can still fall in love.

More important it was, for me, to see how ever lasting a relationship can be, despite all adversities. Not even memory - or its lack of - can prevent one from fulflling his beloved's dream or even from recognizing the person for whom one has once fallen and has never stood back up. Billie Holiday sings in "I'll Be Seeing You" about "all the old familiar places / That this heart of mine embraces / All day through", and she couldn't be more correct, especially because for those who love and manage to make such a feeling last for that all places, be it the place where they met, be it any summer morning. And, of course, that makes me think that I want to be that one, not to mention the smile it puts on my face every time I spot a couple who could clearly be my grandparents; and even though I nearly threw up seeing Tarcísio Meira kissing Sônia Braga on TV (ugh!) I feel jealous when I see such couple live.

In fact, more often than not, I've found myself having lunch with my grandma, picturing what it would be like if my own grandpa was alive, even though I've never met him - he died long before I was born. I guess they'd be a cute couple, but my grandma wouldn't be as good mooded as she is. I suppose this is because once I heard a movie line, I'd say, in which the guy told the girl she was someone he'd like to grow old with, and that sounded so true that somehow it became a "rule of the thumb" to me. Not a rule, ok, but the way he - and whoever he is - put it just seemed... right.

There's another quote which comes to my head now, and it's more appropriate than ever - "For those who love, time is not", by Henry Van Dyke. We are so used to seeing young couples falling in love (and Hollywood loves to show that, indeed!) that sometimes we fail to see ahead of us, and sometimes that is even more important, because once you know where - or WHEN - you want to get, you find your way. Maybe not easily, but eventually you do.