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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 Edge of Silence Photo of the Day
July 10, 2016

The Edge of Silence

I keep a small, smooth stone on my desk that I picked up from a beach where the tide never seemed to end. It is cold to the touch, heavy with the weight of a place I can no longer name, yet it carries the stillness of that shore in its grain. We spend our […]
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The Weight of a Wing Photo of the Day
June 30, 2016

The Weight of a Wing

I keep a small, dried feather inside the pages of a book of poetry I haven’t opened in years. It is a fragile, iridescent thing, a fragment of a flight I never saw, yet it feels heavy with the gravity of a season that has long since passed. We spend so much of our lives […]
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The Weight of Stolen Light Photo of the Day
June 28, 2016

The Weight of Stolen Light

I keep a small, tarnished 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 […]
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Shadows of the Stone Giants Photo of the Day
June 28, 2016

Shadows of the Stone Giants

I keep a small, rusted iron key in a velvet pouch, one that no longer fits any lock I own. It is heavy, cold to the touch, and carries the weight of a door that has long since been torn from its hinges. We spend our lives building walls around our secrets, stacking stone upon […]
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The Weight of Small Things Photo of the Day
June 20, 2016

The Weight of Small Things

I keep a single, tiny wool mitten in the back of my desk drawer, its yarn frayed and thinned by the passage of decades. It is a hollow thing, yet it feels heavy with the gravity of a life not yet lived, a vessel for a hand that has long since grown into the world. […]
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The Weight of Small Things Photo of the Day
June 15, 2016

The Weight of Small Things

I keep a pressed fern inside a heavy dictionary, its edges brittle as a moth’s wing. It was plucked from a garden path decades ago, a tiny, insignificant thing that I once thought worth saving. When I touch it now, it crumbles slightly, shedding dust that smells of damp earth and forgotten summers. We spend […]
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The Weight of Small Things Photo of the Day
June 9, 2016

The Weight of Small Things

I keep a small, rusted key in a velvet-lined box, though I have long since forgotten which door it once opened. It is heavy for its size, cold against the palm, a jagged piece of iron that has outlived the lock it was meant to turn. We often measure our lives by the grand structures […]
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The Weight of a Small Flame Photo of the Day
June 2, 2016

The Weight of a Small Flame

I keep a small, rusted tin box in the back of my drawer, filled with the charred remains of birthday candles from years long gone. They are misshapen, wax-slicked things, smelling faintly of smoke and old celebrations. To anyone else, they are merely debris, but to me, they are the physical evidence of wishes made […]
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The Weight of Salt Photo of the Day
May 27, 2016

The Weight of Salt

I keep a small, smooth stone in my pocket, pulled from a shoreline I visited years ago. It is worn down by the constant, rhythmic rubbing of the tide, a process of erasure that feels more like a refinement. We spend our lives accumulating things—heavy, jagged burdens of memory—only to find that time has a […]
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The Weight of Water Photo of the Day
May 25, 2016

The Weight of Water

I keep a small, smooth river stone on my desk, pulled from a current that dried up years ago. It is heavy, cool to the touch, and carries the memory of a water that no longer flows. We often mistake the permanence of stone for the truth of a place, forgetting that the landscape is […]
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The Weight of Dust Photo of the Day
May 12, 2016

The Weight of Dust

I keep a small, rusted iron key in a velvet pouch, though I have no idea which door it once opened. It is heavy, cold, and carries the faint, metallic scent of a time before my own. To hold it is to wonder about the rooms it guarded and the hands that turned it, perhaps […]
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The Weight of the Crowd Photo of the Day
May 2, 2016

The Weight of the Crowd

I keep a small, rusted skeleton key in a velvet pouch, though I have long since forgotten which door it once opened. It is heavy for its size, cold against the palm, a silent witness to a room that no longer exists. We spend our lives moving through spaces, turning locks, and walking across thresholds, […]
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