Twisted Gifts

Here's a twisted pile of thoughts, the gifts they bring and my best photos of twisted things.

56. I love Saturday mornings. No deadlines. No pressure. Time to sleep in. Cuddle with my warm puppy dog curled up beside me breathing soft.

57. A husband who cleans up after our sick puppy dog.

It's been a busy couple of days with long work hours and evening events Thursday and Friday. 58. Our life group. 59. Invitation to dinner with three other couples. Great food, visiting, laughter, games. However, the past two days have left no free time to blog. Another reason to love Saturday: 60. Time to catch up.

I participate casually in a Facebook group called "Canada's Photo Contest" where a different theme is presented each week. Members post an original photo related to the theme. Then all members can vote for their favourites. Photo with the most votes wins.

Reviewing my nearly 5,000 photos brings so many gifts to mind.Would you like to see my considerations for what to post from my own gallery? This week, the theme is TWISTED.

First, the staircase inside the Arc de Triomphe. Gift 61: Climb the heights on twisting turns with terrific friends, the Shields family

At the Louvre, Gift 62: So much marvellous art collected in one place. Gift 63: The powerful, twisting body of The Rebellious Slave, one of two left unfinished by Michelangelo. The other was The Dying Slave. Gift 64: a sculpture that can capture such exquisite and torturous emotion. Gift 65: Discovering the website for the Louvre with searchable databases of its collections. And the page that revealed some of the artist's soul:

However, non-finito was a recurrent theme with Michelangelo, who played on the opposition between the shine on the smooth, impeccable body of the Dying Slave, and the rough surface of raw marble. In his quest for absolute truth in art, he abandoned a work when he felt he could not attain his ideal. He thus left the marks of his tools (hammers, chisels, rasps, gradines and trepans) clearly visible — living traces of his tireless fight with raw material, which he worked relentlessly in his quest to liberate the figure imprisoned within.

International Monument at Dachau Concentration Camp. Created by Yugoslavian sculptor and holocaust survivor, Nandor Glid. Gift 66: Learning that, given the right circumstance, all persons are capable of unthinkable evil and any person is capable of extraordinary perseverance. Gift 67: It is in darkness that the light shines most bright.

Joy Dare: Can you name 1,000 gifts? 

This is "a dare to live fully right where you are." 

I started naming them (again) right here.