My Eyes

When I was getting ready to move back to America after living in the Middle East, a friend of mine offered to draw a picture of me as a going-away present. He was a phenomenal artist, so I agreed to sit for him. But first he had to pick his colors.

"Lean over the table," he said, "so I can get your eye color."

So I did. As I expected he held up the blue pencil first. Then frowned and set it down and picked up a different blue one, then a different one, and then green ones, and some yellow ones, and even some gray ones. After a couple minutes of this he ended up with a pile of various blues, greens, grays and golds.

"All for my eyes?" I asked, settling back in my chair. "Will it even fit?"

"I'll make it fit," he said as he casually started sketching. "I've never seen this before. You've got almost the whole spectum from gold to blue pent up in there." He jabbed toward my eyes with the eraser of his pencil at the last word.

The picture came out beautiful and I never thought about it again.

Yesterday, eight years later, one web link led to another and I ended up on Wikipedia's entry for eye color. My dad has the textbook definition of blue eyes - completely clear, uninterrupted blue eyes. I've always thought mine were blue too - because they sure weren't the gorgeous green of my mom - but they aren't chrystalline like my dad's. Mine have this atypical starburst of yellow around the pupil and a kind of dark stealy blue rim.

But according to this website, the starburst isn't found in blue eyes - only in grey or blue-green eyes. So if one were seeking to classify my eyes like one classifies a rock specimen in geology, I'd be grey - not the blue I always thought.

My encounter with my artist friend came to mind as I read this entry. My eyes aren't blue at all, and never have been - at least not phenotypically.

But honestly? Big deal. I'm not going to go demand my driver's liscense be modified to display my newly discovered eye color, and I'm not going to start correcting my friend who thinks I should wear more blue because I have "blue eyes". But since this blog primarly functions as my journal, I wanted to record this happy finding for myself, so I could remember the day when I became a little more unique...at least on some obscure, genetic level.

(on a side note, while I have a yellow ring around my pupil, my husband has a copper ring - making him not a greeny but a blue-greeny! What fun stuff to pass on to our kids, eh?)