And faces—nothing has given me more trouble. Eyes, those most important details of a face, are too small to make out unless I am close enough to make out with someone. I didn’t know what color my last boyfriend’s eyes were until after we had been dating for almost six months. Whenever we were close enough for me to discern their color, he kept his eyes closed. I didn’t see his eyes until we were riding a city bus on our way to a concert on an early May evening, squished next to each other on the seats. He turned slightly to me, the light was just right, and I finally saw out of my right eye that his left was brown with textured traces of gold, simultaneously soft and hard in color.
Last year, I was watching TV on my 24-inch computer monitor, sitting less than a foot away, and saw a close-up of someone rolling her eyes. At thirty, I was seeing that gesture for the first time and it was nothing like I had imagined. Inspired, I wanted to get a glimmer of what it is to read feelings in eyes, so I watched Grey’s Anatomy, scrutinizing characters during emotionally wrought scenes, their faces taking up my whole screen. Though I felt all the feelings from the context, the music, the minute changes in pitch and inflection in their voices and the larger facial gestures, I could see nothing in the eyes.
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This is an excerpt from an essay in which I explore a few different aspects of albinism and blindness.
You can check out other Friday Samples here. And don’t forget you can always check out Published and Older Works for more samples.
~Emilia J
April Julia 
You are a very inspiring individual. You make the most of everything you can see and share your thoughts on it with the internet. Your explanation on barrack – poison -walt – jesse piece I’m sure have cleared things up for a lot of individuals.
I wish you all the best in life. Keep writing!
Oh wow, just saw this. Thanks for reading and for your comment Smurksies! Great name too :)
And yeah, that was the whole reason I wrote about the Walt, Jesse, Brock thing, because I think it was leaving a lot of people confused.
LOL I was just thinking there is something kind of funny about me being legally blind and writing all these posts (incl. this one) about TV, which is so visual.
Hi Amelia! I feel so at home reading your blog. I am not blind, but used to be a teacher in the V.I. program in Portland. It was an amazing time for me and I loved each and every one of my students, and was amazed at how they rose to meet each new challenge. I’ll never forget when one of my totally blind first graders took a look at my face with her tiny hands and said, “You are beautiful!”