Living
in the Pink...
Unless
you have been on a total media fast the past two days, you probably
have been faced with the pop question of the week:
What
color is the dress?*
Because
of this dress dilemma, we have all been rapidly educated on the part
lighting and contrast and angle of perception play in how we see
color, in this case, the color of a white/gold - or is it a
blue/black? - dress.
Color
perception is an issue not new to our household. My husband is
red-green color blind. Over the years of our marriage, I've learned
that this does not make him blind to color, but rather, he perceives
color differently from the non-color blind person. He keeps quiet
about it. He can be quite good at avoiding color issues in clothing,
limiting his wardrobe choices to “safe” colors – black, navy,
khaki and blue – colors he can perceive like the rest of us. There
are other clothing options, though, he just has to take on faith,
like that pale gray sweater that goes with everything (to my eye),
but he always suspects is really a bit on the loud side.
Greens
and golds are a source of confusion for him. Well, not really
confusion, just a labeling problem. We had a metallic lime green car
when we were first married. That particular model car also came in a
shade of bright gold. One day we found our car in the parking lot
parked next to the gold model. My husband commented how we were
parked next to an identical car. “Except for the color,” I
said. He didn't know what I was talking about. He knew we called
our car green, so both cars must be green. They looked the same to
him.
Many
silvery grays he sees differently from the average person. When the
pale gray pickled finish for kitchen cabinets was popular, he was
puzzled as to why so many people would choose to have such a loud,
bright color in their kitchen. He would also sometimes point out a
classic silver gray luxury car on the road and ask what color it was.
I'd tell him gray or silver, he'd shake his head and say “Looks
bright pink to me...” His perception of color in the world around
him doesn't leave him at a loss, however, but just allows him to see
things differently than I do. He marvels at the silvery clouded
sunsets, seeing spectacular colors that I don't. He keeps quiet
about it, but sometimes I think he lives in a more colorful world
than I do. I was telling a friend about my husband's perception of
color, how he sees sunsets, sees pinks where I only see gray. My
friend looked at my very gray hair and asked what color did my
husband see my hair as being. I didn't know. I asked him. He
admitted to me that as I got older, my hair had turned pinker, now in
some light, a decidedly hot pink. Who knew?
For
the record, my husband and I both saw “the dress” as the
white/gold combo, though it really was a blue/black dress. On this
occasion we both saw the same colors. Or, at least we think we did.
I think the dress issue in general is a neat reminder that we are
more unique in how we perceive the world around us than we often
realize. We each get to see the things of this world from a
perspective that is ours alone. Sometimes these perspectives share
borders, line up for a time, but I ultimately see what I
see, not what others see. And that's O.K. We can enjoy our lives
from our own unique perspectives and let others enjoy theirs. For
one man I know, this means going into post-midlife married to a woman
with hot pink hair...
Cold
hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes
the colours from our sight,
Red
is gray and yellow white,
But
we decide which is right.
And
which is an illusion...
From
the Moody Blues' The Day Begins
*If
you've been living in a cave this week, here's what I'm talking
about: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/
