It’s that time of the year when all I want to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon is to snuggle on the couch with a feel-good movie, with perhaps a touch of middle age romance. This weekend, I did just that.
I didn’t realise how much I missed watching a film, featuring a middle age romance, which I could identify myself with. The modern day TV romances all seem to be dominated by reality TV. Most populated by instagram ready 20 to 30 somethings falling in and out of love.
Forget the likes of Love Island, Bachelor in Paradise or Ex on the beach. A film is what I desired and ‘Gloria Bell’ staring Julienne Moore, currently showing on BBC iplayer, was just the ticket.
How refreshing it was to watch a film about a middle-aged divorced woman feeling liberated enough to go out on her own to singles clubs and dance with wild abandon to her favourite disco songs.
There’s more to the story than that but the purpose of this article is not to write a film review (even though it’s a good film, go watch it) but to express how struck I was by one particular scene. It was a scene where a poem is being read to Gloria by her hapless lover, Arnold, played by the equally brilliant actor, John Turturro.
One line caught my attention, and it was with this one line that I decided to google the poem.
‘And if I were blood, I’d live in your heart.’ (swoon).
That line, to me, is everything!
Some how, the romantic in me (sadly dulled by years of self- inflicted singledom) was awakened. A reminder that affairs of the heart is not just for the young, and that middle-age romance is still a strong and achievable thing.
I don’t know whether to describe this poem as simply deep or deeply simple. What is undeniable is that it is simple, almost childlike, but oh so touchingly romantic. What do you think? I’d love to hear about your middle-age romance stories.
A Love Poem by Claudio Bertoni
I’d like to be a nest if you were a little bird.
I’d like to be a scarf if you were a neck and were cold.
If you were music, I’d be an ear.
If you were water, I’d be a glass.
If you were light, I’d be an eye.
If you were a foot, I’d be a sock.
If you were the sea, I’d be a beach.
And if you were still the sea, I’d be a fish, and I’d swim in you.
And if you were the sea, I’d be salt.
And if I were salt, you’d be lettuce, an avocado, or at least a fried egg.
And if you were a fried egg, I’d be a piece of bread.
And if I were a piece of bread, I’d be butter or jam.
If you were jam, I’d be the peach in the jam.
If I were a peach, you’d be a tree.
And if you were a tree, I’d be your sap . . .
And I’d course through your arms like blood.
And if I were blood, I’d live in your heart.
