Nine: "Mnemosyne" – Eye Color

This is the least inspirational blog post ever. But at least you'll learn something about me. Maybe.

By the way, potential sporadic series called "Mnemosyne"? Basically means "memory" in Greek, and it's where I'll talk about something from years gone by... I have lots of mnemosynes of the weirdest kind, so it won't be hard.

Mnemosyne

Preschool. We were filling in some sort of fact sheet about ourselves. I think we measured our height, wrote our family's names, and stuff like that. Well, it came time to declare our eye colors, so everyone went over the the mirror sitting up against the yellow painted wall and took turns staring at ourselves. I was one of the first up and so  got up there and looked really close. The problem was, at that time I'd never dealt with eye color before. I didn't exactly know what I was looking for. Moreover, there was a line behind me. So I stepped out of line and went back to my desk.

I overheard other kids as they discovered their eyes to be blue, green, or brown. In confusion, I asked my teacher if someone could have black eyes. "No, not usually," was the basic response.

I went back to the mirror when the line had abated and looked at myself again. I looked reallyy close. But I could not discern any color – it was just a bluish white eyeball with a full black center. I flagged my teacher back down (again) and told her that I couldn't tell what my eye color was. She looked and told me to just put brown, so I did.

Now

Fact of the matter is, my eyes by default really are black. My eye color changes, which I suppose it always has, but it is normally black. If I'm in the Sun a great deal, my eyes tend to be more brown, but in all other cases, they have no discernible color whatsoever.

When people ask me what color my eyes are, I respond with brown. I do this for two reasons. First of all, they kinda are, just not all the time. Second, if you tell someone your eyes are black, then they often think you're a little kid who just can't figure out what your eye color is. And for me and my obvious Asian looks, everyone assumes brown anyways and just thinks I don't know it. So I say brown.

So there you go. Next time we talk, look me in the eyes and tell me if I've been spending time in the Sun or not. ;)