There was a social experiment inviting strangers to look into one another's eyes for sixty seconds. No calories. No cost. No words. Just look deeply.

Watching the throats of men who were caught off guard by the experience, at the quivering mouths of women who found connection, made me grab a tissue and I wasn't even there. The onlookers were another story. Some stood with cocked heads and folded arms as if they dared anyone to try to get them to be vulnerable like that. Others gazed with longing, as if they didn't know how to be that close to the person they were arm in arm with. One girl had a shirt that said "Don't take it personally." The antithesis of what was happening in front of her. 

It works, in case you were wondering. Looking into the eyes of the person you live with for a full minute has a physiological basis for increasing affection. Just one article describes it as one of several techniques for bonding. Another is to go through a frightening situation together. Perhaps you have been caught in an elevator with a stranger, or experienced a car crash, and felt suddenly on very close terms. 

The hours I spent gazing into the eyes of my babies took me to a depth of devotion I could never have conjured on my own. Maybe when John and I run out of things to say we can simply behold one another.