Chaos and Kairos

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Blue-eyed Samurai


The fact that I have blue eyes in a land of "black" eyes* is one that doesn't come to my attention very often. It has been quite a long time since the questions such as "how do you see out of your eyes?" have been asked of me. The boy that called me the "blue-eyed samurai" has grown up and stopped the reference. Also, since I only see brown eyes for the most part, my eyes don't stand out to me so much although sometimes they do seem strange when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror!

The other day I went to get contact lenses and I was repeatedly told that the lenses should be slightly larger than the black part of my eye and when putting them in to aim for the black part of my eye, etc. Finally the woman who was fitting the lenses realized what she was saying became a bit flustered. We then discussed the actual color of my eyes and decided that "black" could work for blue eyes as well!

It reminded me of one day long ago after preschool when I asked my light-brown-haired son what color his hair was and he said, "black". "No, son, your hair is light brown." "No, Mommy, it's black!" "Grass is green, the sky is blue, and hair is black!"

It makes me wonder what else in my world perspective needs expanding....




* Japanese use the word for black (くろ) to refer to the color of their irises.