To have eyes that see
On the gift of sight.
Dear reader,
This evening, I choose to trust you with my secret or maybe, one of my secrets.
It started somewhere around 2017, in the dusty and windy a little out of town Dodoma, when I noticed this girl in high school. Let’s say her name was Katy. This girl had eyes that looked like a deep forest of green at night, and during the day, that forest looked like it was set ablaze. Her eyes were fiery, with flames of green and gold. I think that’s what they call “hazel” eyes.
When I went and looked into the mirror, to see if my eyes could also create some forest and fire, I was only met with deep darkness where I almost couldn’t tell the pupil from the rest of the iris. Day or night, my eyes were the same, two black shiny grapes. And I think that’s what they call very “dark-brown” eyes.
I went on to do some online research about eye pigmentation, all the kinds of eye colors that were there in humans race, the most common and the most rare. And by the time, that information only made me thirstier for “colored” eyes. There was brown eyes that could range from light to very dark-brown, there was blue, there was amber, there was hazel, there was green and there was grey. Finding out that I was part of the most common eye color in the world’s population, didn’t make me happy either.
I would still stare deep into my eyes on the mirror as if by doing so, they would somehow slowly grow their fiery embers. They never changed. Katy and I somehow went from casual to close friends, which meant now I was looking into her eyes even closer and for a much longer time. It can get tricky being friends with a person whose eyes you secretly envy, but it was among the sweetest of friendships I experienced in my teen years.
I started college and made friends with another person, who happened to be blind. Let’s say his name was Issa. Issa and I grew close when I sometimes asked if he needed assistance. I walked him to class a couple of times, went to the supermarket, to the bank, even to the ocean once with his other friends for his birthday. Sometimes he asked me some desperate questions and it almost broke my heart a little every time he did. Questions that needed description, and I almost always needed to mention a color. Like how he asked about items in the supermarket while going through shelves of tea boxes and chocolates. Feeling the shape and size of biscuits through their wrappers and boxes with his hands. Or on his birthday, asking what the ocean looked like that day. It was blue, with heavy surfs of white and ships in a distance. And the sky was pink and his cake was white and blue, resembling the ocean. It really made me feel so stupid for ever envying someone else’s eyes, while it was already this special, that I at all, had eyes that could see.
Just over two weeks ago I was in a daladala (that’s the public bus) and noticed a guy with almost what looked like light green eyes. And it took me back to 2017, to Katy and her eyes, to forest and fire. I got home and the obsession started anew, looking deep into my own eyes on the mirror. This time however, it does not spark envy and comparison, but more of curiosity to find what’s beautiful about my dark-brown eyes. I can sense growth in loving myself and my eyes. To reflect on the gift of sight and how we can get so used to it, enough to forget that it’s an unexplainably complex ability. Now I can only look in the mirror and say, and mean it “What a time to be alive, with my dark-brown eyes.”
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Notes:
There’s a sweet love letter I have written to my eyes that I will get to share next Thursday. Don’t miss!
If you are into it, write a love letter to your eyes also, no matter what color, no matter it’s ability. I will be happy to read if you let me, you can reach me by email (elfiecreative12@gmail.com).
I want to read “All the light we cannot see” by Anthony Doerr (I’m currently watching the movie). And “The bluest eye” by Toni Morrison. Feel free to share with me any other resources, that might have the same kind of themes.
Lots of love, may your eyes behold more love and beauty and glory!