Brown Eyes: 2025 In Review

That tower again, it’s watching me

Waiting for Moses to descend the mountain with his commandments

Allons! the inducements shall be greater,

We will sail pathless and wild seas,

We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.

—Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

Ah, warm water

Old men ought to be explorers

Here or there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

—TS Eliot, East Coker

A neighbor visits in San Diego

Last Year

When I last wrote about us (December, 2024), I was living in San Diego, California with my wife Misa. Our son Max was in college at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. I was not working, after being laid off from Big Financial Company, where I worked for twenty-five years.

We Moved

Misa and I live in San Francisco, California.

I am working again.

It was a big year.

Max, pre-graduation

Max graduated

In summer, Max lived in Los Angeles and worked for United Airlines at LA International Airport. He graduated from Embry-Riddle, Magna Cum Laude, on December 13. He will begin work for an airline in Las Vegas, Nevada, in January, 2026.

Us and San Francisco

Regular readers can't be surprised that we moved back to San Francisco. Or maybe you are.

Why did we do it?

The short answer: We are insane.

Not a joke, we are literally insane.

Longer answer: We felt the city pulling us back. Armistead Maupin wrote about his character, Michael Tolliver's decision to stay here, during the worst days of the AIDS epidemic.

To get away from the tragedy—and the talk—some of his friends had moved to places like Phoenix and Charlottesville, but Michael couldn’t see the point of it. The worst of times in San Francisco was still better than the best of times anywhere else. There was beauty here and conspicuous bravery and civilized straight people who were doing their best to help. It was also his home, when all was said and done. He loved this place with a deep and unreasoning passion; the choice was no longer his. —Armistead Maupin, Significant Others

Land’s End, red socks, 1987

From my first contact with the city life was different here. People liked me better. I don't know why. Misa says I look happier here and that's attractive. I can do things that are impossible for me elsewhere. It's exactly like falling in love with an extraordinarily beautiful person, who lifts you off your feet. In return, she takes over your life and you must obey her. Like Michael Tolliver, you give up your power of choice. From then on, you are at her mercy, and she has little mercy. She takes all your money, and she ruins other places for you. You can go shopping for houses, but she decides which one you'll live in. That is what happened to us.

At what price?

In 1988, a big, blonde real estate developer in New York purchased The Plaza Hotel on Central Park South. He took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, wherein he wrote,

For the first time in my life, I have knowingly made a deal which was not economic—for I can never justify the price I paid, no matter how successful The Plaza becomes.

Like Donald’s decision to buy the hotel, our return to the city cannot be justified economically, only with a guilty grin and, “the heart wants what it wants."

So we are back, living on a steep hill overlooking Golden Gate Park. We did it for love. The city has many problems, and it can be quite annoying, but it's home for us.

Special thanks to Pam and Doug Barry, Daniel, Erika and Ezri Duke, Christian Wignall and Ling Khong, who hosted us during our transition. We moved at the end of March. A lot of stuff went wrong, but we were patient with each other and 'cautiously optimistic.’

The old Nob Hill Gang: Andy Stevko and Dale Forest

In summer, we had a party for new and old neighbors, allowing us to reunite with many old friends.

Both of us began looking for jobs, right away. Misa was not successful, and for a long time, neither was I. In September, I received a contract position in information security. Special thanks to Matt Gonko and Tony Stevens. They talked me up, and without them I would still be unemployed. I work near Fisherman’s Wharf.

Fog attacks the lowlands, where we lived before 2012
It’s nice to be higher, like flying above the fog in an airplane

Life on our little mountain
I have lived in the Richmond District, Nob Hill and the Outer Parkside (Ocean Beach) neighborhoods. The new house is near the geographic center of our square city, just west of Twin Peaks. We are directly south of the museums in Golden Gate Park and that famous Bridge. The neighborhood is everything we could hope for, quiet at night but near everything we need. Public transportation improved markedly since we left in 2012, and we are well-served in all directions.

The eternal picture

Yes, incredibly, still working. You can see the current state here, scroll all the way down. You know by now, I’m in no hurry to finish, but I actually paint as much as I can. Honestly, I do. One thing all our 2025 changes have in common is that they killed painting time.

The main campaign was to put more boats in the water. This helps the plane of water look right. I made more than one hundred paper dolls of boats and taped them to the canvases, and now I’m painting in the winners. “For many are called, but few are chosen,” which is one of the more depressing truths Jesus shared with us.

My portrait of Carol, 1990s

In memory

Carol Simonszky Ragle 1941 - 2025

Carol was an accomplished artist, married to another accomplished artist, Roy Ragle.

Carol’s fashion illustration, 1970s

I met the couple in 1989, at my Open Studio event. At that time, we lived a few blocks away from each other in the Richmond District. Roy and Carol were wonderful friends, always encouraging. They believed in me, and I am forever grateful. Roy died in 2014, and in the intervening years, Carol enjoyed looking out at her view of Golden Gate Park and studying astrology. Her apartment was a comfortable library, and I spent many pleasant hours there. Carol went completely deaf, yet we still understood each other, and took comfort from our presence together.