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"What makes us so special as human beings," I said her a while later when we danced once again, "is our ability to do all these things that we have talked about. We have the power to take daring steps, and we have the power to draw a line when we can go no further. We can go to the moon and we can dare to reach out a hand across the table. We have the ability to test all limits, even those we draw as a line in the sand. We can, and we will, redraw those lines when a higher perception unfolds. We are not computers that derive at predictable results. I see us human beings as explorers, Erica. We grow with the discoveries we make. We have the power to look at the world with as wide a vision as we dare and enrich our lives and our world by it and enrich one-another. We can also be so sensitive at the same time that not a blade of grass be harmed as we forge ahead."
I added that these qualities are some of the many fine qualities that make us special as human beings, especially her. "You are exceedingly precious to me, because of that," I said. "Did you know that? Humanity is a miracle, Erica, and you and I are a part of that miracle. With wonderful people like you around, I think we are beginning to become aware of the miracle that we truly are. At least I am. Being touched by your kindness and openness creates a wonderful feeling. Have you ever felt such a feeling when the whole sky becomes pink? If you have, won't you agree?"
She said that she didn't agree fully, because so little of our human capacity is actually being utilized. She confessed that the entire day had been a profound experiment for her from the moment we met. She said that she had never before allowed herself to test the waters, as I had put it, of this wider vision. It was a mixture of daring and of taking responsibility, a daring to push back the limits to freedom, and a taking responsibility to cause no harm to anyone. So, in a way, she said, she did agree with me.
We left the dance floor both happy and satisfied. The sadness for having to part soon, without ever seeing each other again, had vanished. Also, as I had suggested that we human beings could, she did redraw the line in the sand. She allowed me to drive her home.
Earlier she had insisted that she would go home by streetcar, as she was used to. She had felt that I shouldn't know where she lived. She had said that the temptation would be too great for me to restart our affair the next day, and that we then might go beyond the line that we agreed should not be crossed. But all this changed. Our dancing had changed things. It had become possible for her to accept my offer to drive her home.
It felt strange having another woman in the car bedside me in the dark of night, coming from a dance. It also felt strangely exiting. For a moment I wished I had rented a more respectable car instead of the smallest thing on four wheels that I could find.
"Was your day satisfactory?" I asked cautiously. This was meant as a diversion to draw the focus away from this obviously too primitive form of transport for such an occasion.
Her answer startled me. "Are you asking me as a researcher or as a woman?"
"A researcher of what?" I heard myself say in this moment of confusion.
"A researcher of love," she replied. She explained, as though it was an excuse, that love is the most essential force in the universe.
Here I was startled again. She didn't say it was the most powerful force, or the most enriching force. She called it the most essential force. What made it that?
"What do you mean?" I asked cautiously. "Why is it essential?"
"It's actually more than essential," she said with a smile. "It's absolutely essential. It took me a long time to realize that." She said that she started out studying nuclear physics because she wanted to help build a rich future for us all, which she said, won't be possible without nuclear power. Later, when nuclear research became virtually eliminated, she said that she realized that humanity needs richer food resources almost more urgently than it needs nuclear power, since our foods had become nutritionally hollow. This prompted her to make the tremendous shift from nuclear physics to microbiology. Then, while working in this arena, she said that she realized one day that there is something still more fundamental to our civilization and to human life. "This," she said, "is love."
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