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Contributing Writer Grief, Absence & Negative Space

Amelia Cross

Amelia Cross has contributed to Light & Composition since 2015. Her Reflections meditate on what is no longer there — the absence with a shape, the gap left by something specific that once existed. Amelia's writing is never vague in its grief: she names what is gone, precisely, and finds in that precision a kind of staying power. Readers return to her pieces at particular times of year. They tend to know exactly why.

287 Published Reflections

Reflections by Amelia Cross

Showing 12 of 287 essays
The Geography of Leaving Photo of the Day
February 23, 2020

The Geography of Leaving

There is a specific silence that follows a departure, the kind that settles into the upholstery of a car seat long after the passenger has stepped out. I remember the way the air felt in the passenger seat of my father’s old sedan—the smell of stale coffee and worn leather, the way the sunlight hit […]
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The Weight of Dew Photo of the Day
February 9, 2020

The Weight of Dew

There is a specific silence that belongs only to the hour before the world begins to demand things of you. It is not the silence of sleep, but the silence of potential—the heavy, damp stillness of a garden before the sun has decided to burn the dew away. I remember the blue enamel pitcher that […]
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The Weight of Small Beginnings Photo of the Day
January 31, 2020

The Weight of Small Beginnings

The nursery in my childhood home was painted a pale, suffocating yellow, and for years, it held the specific scent of talcum powder and damp wool. That room is gone now, repurposed into a sterile office where the air never seems to settle. It is the absence of that particular, heavy stillness—the kind that only […]
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The Weight of the Feast Photo of the Day
January 23, 2020

The Weight of the Feast

There is a specific silence that follows a meal shared in a crowded room. It is the silence of the plate after the last bite has been taken, the quiet realization that the hunger which brought you together has been satisfied, leaving only the debris of intimacy. I remember the way my grandmother would leave […]
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The Weight of Softness Photo of the Day
January 23, 2020

The Weight of Softness

There is a specific silence that follows the harvest. It is not the silence of a field left fallow, but the quiet that settles when the vibrant, living thing has been plucked from its stem. I think of the garden in late August, the way the raspberries would stain my fingertips a bruised, urgent red—a […]
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The Height of Silence Photo of the Day
January 19, 2020

The Height of Silence

There is a specific weight to the space between the ground and the canopy, a vertical distance that once held the neck of a creature I knew in a book from my childhood. It was a drawing of a giraffe, its head lost somewhere in the clouds, representing a world that felt impossibly tall and […]
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The Weight of a Glance Photo of the Day
January 19, 2020

The Weight of a Glance

There is a specific silence that follows the departure of a childhood summer. It is not the silence of an empty room, but the quiet that settles when a version of yourself—the one who believed the sun would never set on a Tuesday—simply ceases to exist. I remember the exact shade of the light on […]
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The Map of What Remains Photo of the Day
January 13, 2020

The Map of What Remains

There is a specific weight to the skin of someone who has lived long enough to forget the person they were at twenty. It is not just the folding of flesh or the silvering of hair; it is the way the face becomes a map of every departure. I think of my grandfather’s hands, the […]
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The Shape of Submergence Photo of the Day
November 26, 2019

The Shape of Submergence

There is a specific weight to the water that once held my father’s watch. It was a heavy, silver thing that stopped ticking the moment it touched the salt of the Pacific, leaving behind a silence where the rhythmic pulse of the second hand used to be. We spend our lives trying to anchor ourselves […]
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The Shape of a Shadow Photo of the Day
November 10, 2019

The Shape of a Shadow

The blue ceramic mug that sat on my father’s desk for twenty years is gone. It was chipped at the rim, a jagged little bite taken out of the porcelain, and it always smelled faintly of stale coffee and old paper. When I look at the space where it used to sit, I don’t just […]
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The Weight of a Name Photo of the Day
October 25, 2019

The Weight of a Name

There is a specific silence that follows a name when the person it belongs to is no longer within earshot. It is not the silence of an empty room, but the silence of a tether that has been cut. I remember the way my mother’s name felt in my mouth—a heavy, rounded sound that anchored […]
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The Weight of Unripeness Photo of the Day
October 15, 2019

The Weight of Unripeness

There is a specific ache in the half-formed. I remember the green tomatoes left on the vine when the first frost arrived, hard as river stones and just as cold. They were promises that the season had no intention of keeping. We often mourn the harvest, the fullness of the fruit, the sweetness that drips […]
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