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Contributing Writer Memory, Objects & Elegiac Prose

Marta Vidal

Marta Vidal is a writer and archivist whose work explores what physical objects hold — letters, worn photographs, things kept against all practical reason. She has contributed to Light & Composition since 2016. A photograph for Marta is always a form of preservation, something the photographer chose to keep. Her Reflections open with a specific object and arrive, gently, at what it means when the moment has long passed.

389 Published Reflections

Reflections by Marta Vidal

Showing 12 of 389 essays
The Weight of a Petal Photo of the Day
August 12, 2018

The Weight of a Petal

I keep a pressed sprig of lavender inside the pages of a book I rarely open, its color long ago surrendered to the slow, quiet alchemy of time. When I touch it, the brittle stems threaten to turn to dust, yet they hold a scent that defies the years—a ghost of a summer that no […]
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The Unfinished Map Photo of the Day
August 3, 2018

The Unfinished Map

I keep a small, brass compass in my desk drawer that no longer points north. Its needle trembles with a frantic, aimless energy, as if it has forgotten the magnetic pull of the world and is searching for a destination that has long since vanished. My grandfather carried it through mountain passes that do not […]
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The Weight of Petals Photo of the Day
July 27, 2018

The Weight of Petals

I keep a pressed violet inside a heavy dictionary, its color long ago surrendered to the pages. It is brittle now, a ghost of a bloom that once held the weight of a summer afternoon. When I touch it, I am reminded that beauty is not a permanent state, but a slow, quiet surrender to […]
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The Weight of Stillness Photo of the Day
July 21, 2018

The Weight of Stillness

I keep a small, smooth stone on my desk, pulled from a riverbed I visited when I was still young enough to believe that time was a river that only flowed forward. It is cool to the touch, a dense weight that anchors my hand when the room feels too quiet or the hours begin […]
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The Weight of the Wind Photo of the Day
July 18, 2018

The Weight of the Wind

I keep a small, frayed piece of twine in my desk drawer, a remnant from a kite my father built for me when the summers felt infinite. It is coarse against my skin, still holding the faint, dusty scent of the field where we ran until our lungs burned and the sky seemed to pull […]
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The Weight of Fading Light Photo of the Day
July 2, 2018

The Weight of Fading Light

I keep a small, smooth piece of sea glass in a wooden bowl on my desk, its edges softened by decades of salt and tide. It was once part of something sharp and clear, a bottle perhaps, discarded and forgotten until the ocean decided to remake it. There is a quiet mercy in how time […]
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The Weight of a Wing Photo of the Day
June 30, 2018

The Weight of a Wing

I keep a pressed fern inside a heavy dictionary, its edges brittle as dried skin. It was plucked from a garden path during a summer that felt like it would never end, a time when the days were long enough to notice the slow, rhythmic pulse of the earth. We often think that to hold […]
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The Weight of Petals Photo of the Day
June 22, 2018

The Weight of Petals

I keep a pressed cherry blossom inside the pages of a dictionary, a ghost of a spring that ended long ago. It is brittle now, a translucent scrap of paper-thin skin that threatens to crumble if I breathe too heavily upon it. There is a strange, quiet ache in holding something that was never meant […]
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The Weight of Departure Photo of the Day
June 13, 2018

The Weight of Departure

I keep a small, brass key in a velvet-lined box, though I have long since forgotten which door it once opened. It is heavy for its size, cold to the touch, and carries the faint, metallic scent of a house that no longer exists. We spend our lives collecting these fragments—keys to rooms we have […]
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The Weight of Wings Photo of the Day
June 8, 2018

The Weight of Wings

I keep a pressed blue flower inside the pages of a dictionary, its petals now so thin they are translucent, like the skin of an onion. It was picked in a garden that no longer exists, during a summer when time felt as heavy and slow as honey. When I touch it, I am not […]
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The Weight of the Kitchen Photo of the Day
June 8, 2018

The Weight of the Kitchen

I keep a small, wooden mortar and pestle that belonged to my grandmother, its surface worn smooth and darkened by decades of crushed herbs and garlic. When I run my thumb along the rim, I can almost smell the sharp, earthy ghost of Sunday dinners long since eaten. It is a heavy, stubborn thing, yet […]
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The Weight of a Copper Coin Photo of the Day
May 20, 2018

The Weight of a Copper Coin

I keep a small, tarnished thimble in my sewing box, worn smooth by a thumb that stopped moving years ago. It is a hollow thing, yet it feels heavy with the quiet labor of a life spent mending what was torn. We often mistake the value of our days for the things we can stack […]
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