Finding Four Eyes

2015 is my 50th anniversary of wearing eyeglasses. I have had a lifelong love affair with frames. Moreover, I have been faithful all these years; I've not even so much as glanced at a sexy pair of contact lenses. 

I got my first glasses when I was 12. When the eye doctor said, "You're nearsighted," I thought my world would end. Sure, there are worse things that can happen to a kid, but what preteen wants to be called “Four Eyes” or be made to move up to the front of the class "to see the blackboard better?"

My mother went with me to pick out my first pair. She selected upturned, cat’s eye frames; very 1960s. I thought they were hideous. I committed to making everyone in the optometrist's office pay for this outrage by employing my most creative pouty faces. I walked like death out of there, dragging along behind my mother as though I was going to the gallows. When I got home my Dad took one glance and said, “Oh, you look like a little secretary!” I beamed! Looking in the mirror, I thought, “Yah! Baby! You are a seventh-grade career woman!" It was then that I understood eyeglasses as costume pieces. They had powers! Transformative powers to let me adopt characters and identities. Oh, this was going to be good.

In high school, however, those same glasses betrayed me, conspiring with the braces on my teeth to turn me into a first-class nerd. By grade 12, when I got the braces off, I finally got wise to the fact that if I was going to achieve any social success as a teenager before graduation, I would have to squint my way through the corridors of our school. Some girls might twitter to their friends (in our day this was an actual verbal utterance), “Is he smiling at me?” I truly had no way of knowing until a guy got within my limited field of vision. By then it would always be too late; I was just that weird girl with the scrunched-up face. But there was no way I was wearing those damn glasses!

First year university, liberal arts, 1970. The prevailing hippy vibe prompted me to put away my nerdy ways and buy a pair of tiny, wire-framed, oval Granny glasses that constantly slid down my nose. Combined with a hair-do that resembled droopy Cocker Spaniel ears, these helped me affect a certain arty coolness. There I was, studying Chaucer, going to lunch-hour seminars where grad students read aloud in Middle English and attending plays put on by the Theatre department. Well, that led to meeting the Love of My Life who was majoring in Acting. All because of tiny, oval, wire-framed Granny glasses! Back in business, baby!

From there, as trends often do, glasses grew in size to something just short of dinner plates. When the Love of My Life and I got married, I wore frames that were as big as saucers. Orange saucers. Christian Dior orange saucers, mind you, as might befit an Interior Design student, which is what I was when I got them, but I look at our wedding photos now and cringe, "What the heck was I thinking? Those things made me look like a housefly!" Seriously way out of proportion to my face, which is something a design student ought to have noticed.

I won't bore you with the middle years of my bespectacled history. Suffice to say that, over the years, I have worn every frame fashion and fad that has come along. Each has allowed me to adopt personae needed for my career: from designer to college instructor to museum planner to community volunteer. Now that I am retired, I am happy to say that the affair continues. The question now is, "What is the best look for a 62 year old dog-mom, blogger, Sunday painter, dancerciser, all-around-town Socialite?" 

And so, today, I am contemplating the very hipster online eyeglass experience offered by Warby Parker. "Online glasses!" you gasp, "How do you buy eyeglasses online?" Well, you might wonder how an online service can replace your neighborhood optician with the crisp white lab coat that snaps at the elbows when he or she raises their arms to slide those new frames across your nose as though they are about to conduct an orchestra. 

Here's how they do it. You browse the WP website for potential frames and click on five choices you wish to have sent to you for trying on. They arrive in a neat box covered in cool graphics and affirmation messages that make you feel like you are such a smart cookie. If you want a second opinion, you can engage their social media sites to ask for comments from total strangers! When you're done, you send the frames back. Having made your selection you send your prescription via email, provide vital physical measurements of your face on a chat line with a technician, and "Voila!" a pair of eyeglasses is sent to you! The ones I'm thinking about are almost as big as my wedding specs, but a bit more Liz Lemon-ish. Happy Anniversary to me and my glasses!

If you want to weigh in on the frames, go to warbyparker.com and search for Duckworth.