By Vivian Pan, ’25.
My mother’s eyes always look alert. Wide open at all times. Even though they are smaller than my sister’s, they give an even more passionate stare. When I struggle in school, I burn by a glimpse of subtle disillusionment that nests in her gaze. The welcoming sparkle slowly disappears and the surface of her iris becomes dull and matte. A stone statue; unpolished and grainy. Rough and muted.
She always relates the Chinese idiom that “the eyes are the way to the mind.” I struggle to understand its vagueness. I can’t help to notice the miniscule wrinkles that were growing in the corners of her eyes; scars that are only sculpted and carved by adversaries, and smiles. She loves to smile. A surge of energy.
Her eye bags sag, like a single raindrop that drags itself slowly down the broad endeavor of a window, candle wax dripping and trickling down. A permanent smudge of charcoal; a half moon shadow.
My sister’s eyes are big and round. Her eyes are like marbles. Perfectly circular and glassy. I have always admired her eyes, maybe even a little bit jealous of them. My mother always says that her eyes are “the prettiest in the family.” Maybe it’s because of her long and thick lashes, or just how bright and clear they are. Her eyelids are like the skin of a ripe peach; supple and soft. It’s funny, even ironic, how the “prettiest” eyes don’t work as well as mine. My sister has to wear special overnight contacts to rejuvenate or fix her vision for the next day. She refuses to wear glasses. I guess she has gained some sort of confidence from her eyes from all of the compliments she gets. Glasses would make her eyes even bigger; the lens giving her a bug-like appearance. Distorted. I notice the dilation of her pupils when she looks at me. Breathing in and out. Someone changing the aperture of a camera.When she goes outside, the blazing afternoon sun makes them shimmer and twinkle, like glitter on a Christmas ornament. Her eyes have a permanent right-about-to-cry glisten. The only beautiful part of crying.
My father’s eyes are dark brown, inky. Black hole eyes that veil his emotions. They suppress them so only constant small outbursts of vehemence would escape and seep through. Ink bleeding through a piece of paper. His eyes are traced with a pencil of ash, smokey and cloudy. His sunken eyes, caving into his head. Hiding.
My father’s eyes are tired. Pink branches form in the whites. Bloodshot from looking at a fluorescent screen for hours on end in his murky room. Answering infinite emails. Bright, white, light. His eyelids droop like the ears of a sad dog, yearning for attention. He told me he used to have perfect vision. Crystal clear. Late high school nights of reading thick, tiny font textbooks illuminated by the radiance of a mere candle flame damaged his eyes. The years of tedious, meticulous stress all dispersed in them. Now he wears glasses. Two elliptical magnifying glasses. Frameless.
How is it so difficult to write about my own eyes? I look into the mirror closely and observe that the tip of my nose is grazing the cool, smooth surface, my breath fogging it. Pools of honeyish brown with tones of amber and a tinge of rouge stare back at me. A crescent moon of white below my iris.
I can feel my eyes. The way my eyelashes touch when I smile. The melancholic warmth that lingers after wiping salty tears off my cheeks.
My eyes are not special. I don’t know them. Other people do. Thousands of strangers, hundreds of familiar faces, tens of close friends, but not me.
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