{"id":4095,"date":"2016-02-23T11:58:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T19:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=4095"},"modified":"2016-02-23T12:00:07","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T20:00:07","slug":"february-23-2016-one-us-flies-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/february-23-2016-one-us-flies-away\/","title":{"rendered":"February 23, 2016 &#8211; One of us flies away"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fcbkbttn_button\">\n                            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">\n                                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/plugins\/facebook-button-plugin\/images\/standard-facebook-ico.png\" alt=\"Fb-Button\" \/>\n                            <\/a>\n                        <\/div><div class=\"fcbkbttn_like \"><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/february-23-2016-one-us-flies-away\/\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\" layout=\"standard\"  width=\"225px\" size=\"small\"><\/fb:like><\/div><\/div><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-4098 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/mickey-II.jpg\" alt=\"mickey II\" width=\"548\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/mickey-II.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/mickey-II-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/mickey-II-200x134.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 548px) 100vw, 548px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this post:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-4095-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/20160223-Post.m4a?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/20160223-Post.m4a\">http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/20160223-Post.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>It was almost three years ago when I got a voicemail message from someone who was looking for an art class, an art group \u2013 a regular place to paint. She\u2019d just moved up to Marin from Huntington Beach, in the LA area, where she had a watercolor group that she\u2019d been attending for some time, and was missing terribly. She\u2019d found my number through Perry\u2019s, one of our local art stores. Mickey and I talked, I told her about us and she decided to join our Friday group. Starting in early April, 2013 until last Friday, Mickey came every week she could \u2013 which amounted to 116 weeks out of the 137, that we\u2019ve met in that timeframe. She has been devoted \u2013 to us and to herself and her artwork. On Saturday, she\u2019s on a plane to Portland, Oregon where she\u2019s moving to join her son and his family. We are going to <em>so<\/em> miss her. And she us.<\/p>\n<p>Friday we had a going-away\/celebrating-our-time-together party. Our hearts were full and heavy all at the same time. I showed a slideshow video I\u2019d put together of all of the watercolors that Mickey painted while she was with us, along with some of the photos of us I\u2019d taken, so she\u2019d have that to take with her.<\/p>\n<p>Every week, I take pictures of each artist\u2019s work-in-progress. I don\u2019t know why, but something had me start doing this, not too long after I started leading the Tuesday (now Thursday) group in the fall of 2011. I miss some artists\u2019 work some weeks, though and when I saw that I hadn\u2019t captured some of Mickey\u2019s paintings after she finished them, I called her earlier in the week, to see if I could come visit her and take new photos. I told her it was so that I could have a complete record of all she painted &#8211; I wanted the slideshow to be a surprise!<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gmu4s6g0DJA\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center>On a rainy afternoon last Wednesday, we had a sweet visit. She had framed a couple paintings, given away a couple more, and thrown away two she said were \u201cbusts.\u201d The rest were stored in portfolios, which she pulled out from under the bed. It was really wonderful to see again, these paintings I\u2019d watched come to be, week after week.<\/p>\n<p>She told me she was trying to get her address changed with Social Security, and had been on hold for nearly an hour, and still had no luck. So I sat down at her computer to see what we could do online. And while there, she asked me if I wanted to see all her paintings. She\u2019s kept a photo record of every one of her pieces of art. Other than the beautiful paintings she\u2019d framed on her walls, I had no idea what she\u2019d painted before she moved here. I was blown away by how prolific she\u2019s been! I didn\u2019t count, but she\u2019s done dozens and dozens and dozens of paintings.<\/p>\n<p>It was very clear how she felt about each one. A few, like the two she tossed from our time together, she called \u201ca bust.\u201d Some she said were \u201cokay.\u201d But some she really liked and called \u201csuccessful \u2013 a really good painting.\u201d She\u2019s painted portraits, landscapes, buildings (barns, a Victorian house surrounded by flowering shrubs), flowers, fruits \u2013 all kinds of subjects. She knows where each one is and whether that person has it hanging or up not. Mickey is very connected to her body of work!<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s kept in very regular contact, with some of the artists who she painted with <em>two<\/em> days a week, in Southern California. One of them still calls her every week! She\u2019s also still connected to her teacher, who has come to visit every time he comes up here. She told me that some of them have been painting for 30 years, and that at 11 years, she a mere newcomer as an artist. The thing is, we just helped Mickey celebrate her 88th birthday at the end of January. I asked incredulously, \u201cyou <em>started<\/em> painting when you were 77 years old?\u201d And she just twinkled back at me.<\/p>\n<p>Mickey didn\u2019t just start painting, she<em> became<\/em> a painter, an artist. She made making art a major part of her life, and she didn\u2019t even <em>start<\/em> until she had outlived many, many people. What I told her I found so remarkable, is the force that is in her to just keep going. As soon as one painting was finished there was another idea, a plan for the next one. I didn\u2019t have this kind of impetus to paint consistently, until I had an outlet, an audience. I found it really easy for life to crowd out my painting time. But not Mickey. Painting has ahold of her in a way that inspires and emboldens the rest of us.<\/p>\n<p>Mickey has been living in an assisted living community, where she found many of her neighbors hard to relate to, as they aren\u2019t as engaged in life as she. So, coming to her art group has been really important to her well-being. She told me not long after starting, \u201cyou are stuck with me! I\u2019m not leaving, you know.\u201d This has been the topic of a loving tease between us \u2013 I\u2019ve \u2013 <em>we\u2019ve<\/em> been so happy to have been stuck with her! And now that she\u2019s moving away, she told us that though she\u2019s made friends where she lives, what\u2019s really hard is leaving us. She said \u201cit\u2019s intimate, this is <em>home<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mickey is tiny \u2013 not even five feet tall, but inside that little body, is a spirit that has captured our hearts and shown us how it\u2019s possible to be very alive, and creative well into our years. Sue, who is closer to my age, was traveling last week and couldn\u2019t say goodbye to Mickey herself, so she emailed me: \u201cLet her know that she has been a big inspiration to me as well &#8230; as I now intend to paint till I&#8217;m 100!\u201d When I told this to Mickey, she said, \u201cso do I!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s our Mickey \u2013 gosh are we going to miss her something awful! But, I\u2019ve heard that Portland has a beautiful rose garden, which I\u2019ve never visited. We\u2019re already plotting a trip this summer to see the roses, see our Mickey and paint together again.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m happy and grateful to you, Mickey, for being one of us. You are in our hearts always.<\/p>\n<p>Love,<\/p>\n<p>Cara<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to this post: It was almost three years ago when I got a voicemail message from someone who was looking for an art class, an art group \u2013 a regular place to paint. She\u2019d just moved up to Marin from Huntington Beach, in the LA area, where she had a watercolor group that she\u2019d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>February 23, 2016 - One of us flies away - Life in Full Color<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/february-23-2016-one-us-flies-away\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"February 23, 2016 - One of us flies away - Life in Full Color\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Listen to this post: It was almost three years ago when I got a voicemail message from someone who was looking for an art class, an art group \u2013 a regular place to paint. 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