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/