As Time Goes By

" I'm shocked! Shocked to find that avoidance is going on in here."

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with that scene from Casablanca in my head. As a UCLA film student, I studied every line of the typewritten script to fathom its multilayered brilliance.

The film takes place during World War II in French-occupied Casablanca, Morocco, which had the unique position of being a holding place for refugees escaping from Nazi-occupied Europe. Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) owns a café in Casablanca where, through the black market, refugees and local opportunists make deals over exit visas necessary to leave the town.

Interestingly, Warner Bros.’ 1942 release was delayed to avoid betraying negotiations between Churchill and Roosevelt in Casablanca about America’s entry into the war against the Nazis.

An interesting parallel to now: American media continues to flirt with fascism (looking at you, CBS, CNN, ABC). During the War years, Warner Bros was the only studio to take an uncompromising anti-Nazi stance.

Back to the story:

Rick’s world is shaken when Victor Laszlo—a leader of the underground movement against the Nazis—comes to Casablanca with his wife, Ilsa Lund (played by Ingrid Bergman). Ilsa and Rick had a love affair in Paris, and seeing her reminds Rick of the deep feelings of young love he prefers to forget.

Rick and Ilsa’s love was fueled by infatuation and romance. Ilsa and Victor’s marriage is purposeful and mission-driven.

The signature song, “As Time Goes By,” carries the poignant verse:

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by…

…It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

And today, in our own strange war years, as we fight an orgy of lies and techno-fascism, what a comforting thought to know that “The world will always welcome lovers.”

Two weeks ago, I completed my third year of singlehood after losing Karen.

In my waking-up, I felt “shocked” like the police captain Renault, who barged into Rick’s bar to announce his shock that “gambling is going on here,” but in my case, I became shocked at the rampant avoidance I discovered in relationship land. But there are no exit visas to experience passions un-lived.

Stumbling into the light after a 38-year marriage, I have been given a first-hand tour of the buried trauma, lost love, and dismissive avoidance that characterizes the second half of life. It’s a modern-day social disease.

For the movie nerds, when the morally ambiguous Renault storms into Rick’s Bar, a croupier hands Renault a pile of money, saying, “Here are your winnings, sir.”

The subtext here: Bruce is not without avoidance.

Definition: Dismissive Avoidant Attachment — an attachment style where individuals highly value independence, suppress emotions, and avoid deep intimacy or relying on others due to discomfort with closeness and vulnerability

Casablanca plays like a romance, but it goes deeper. As time goes by (in our forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies), we are struck by the haunting realization, like Rick and Ilsa, that our proverbial love affair in Paris can never be rekindled.

In my own Rip Van Winkle stumble into the love landscape, I have been shocked to see the primordial innocence of love calcify, seemingly irreversible, as people hit middle age. Still yearning, but the landscape appears barren — unaware that the dry terrain lives in one’s heart.

I have reached an unmentionable age where my cohort has closed up shop — awnings up, sign on the door: “Gone Home to my Weighted Blanket and Cat.”

Sing it again, Sam. Time has gone by. The comfort and familiarity of habit are too strong to risk true emotional vulnerability.

I’ve been keeping a quiet tally among the 55+ singles I meet: In three years, I have met only one woman (a close friend), actively seeking a male relationship, not with me, but in general. I realize that the dating sites are filled with such people, but I am pursuing an organic approach. Plus, the dating scene is more about wound-filling than exploring one’s subconscious with another human being.

I spent my three years post-Karen writing a book about this — Bondo, which explores: The capacity to form and maintain human intimacy. I sold a handful of books to friends before I realized that it may be too intimate a portrayal of love after loss.

I have not given up on Bondo. Beginning with Trump’s election in November 2024, I began hosting “Emergency Dinner Parties” — using the intimacy of food and conversation around the table to heal our collective nervous systems and to counter the amygdala loop of fear and lies being disseminated by our government. Like Victor Laszlo, the dinner table was my form of MAGA resistance.

I hosted my last Emergency Dinner Party in November. As it became clear that the mission was complete, the wheels were falling off the Trump train, and Americans were coming out of their stupor, it was time to try something new.

I am fascinated by Rick and Ilsa’s young love in Paris.

So, for my next try at Bondo, I plan to “time-travel” to Gertrude Stein’s Parisian salon in the New Year:

By the 1920s, Stein’s salons were famously entertaining the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, and Ezra Pound. She named the young men who sought meaning in the arts after World War I, the “lost generation,” and they clustered around Stein, who held court from a high-backed chair near the stove in the atelier.¹

Today’s lost generation has sacrificed its primal innocence at the manic altar of social media — and soon, AI companionship.

My salon experiment: To see if it is possible to restore Bondo with the supportive intimacy of others. Can the safety of a small group help regulate one’s nervous system and gently release one’s subconscious to feel deeply again?

I plan to lean on Jung for much of the content in this crucible of consciousness:

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves, but only if we have the courage to look inward rather than remaining focused outward.” ~ Jung

Jung described the goal:

“The goal is not to find people who accept everything you see, but to find people who can engage with your perceptions as valuable contributions to understanding rather than threats to their self-image.”

It’s Christmas Eve, and in service to my little family, my two guys and I are going to see Avatar 3 — in sea-sickening 3D (oy). I’d prefer Bogart and Bergman, but maybe another day.

Love to you all, Bruce.

1. https://thesalonhost.com/the-iconic-salon-legacy-of-gertrude-stein/