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Contributing Writer Storytelling & Travel Writing

Tom Bretherton

Tom Bretherton has spent the better part of two decades travelling, and the better part of that time paying attention. He has contributed to Light & Composition since 2014 with a writer's instinct for the particular — the name of a town, the timing of a conversation, the kind of detail that makes a story feel true. His Reflections are brief narratives that arrive at something universal by way of somewhere very specific.

621 Published Reflections

Reflections by Tom Bretherton

Showing 12 of 621 essays
The Weight of Small Things Photo of the Day
January 1, 2021

The Weight of Small Things

I remember sitting in a kitchen in Krakow, watching my friend’s daughter hold a stray kitten she’d found near the coal shed. She didn’t talk; she just held the creature as if it were made of spun glass, her entire world shrinking down to the rhythmic rise and fall of its tiny chest. We spend […]
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The Weight of Quiet Photo of the Day
December 1, 2020

The Weight of Quiet

I remember sitting in a small cafe in Bergen, watching a man struggle to zip up his heavy parka before stepping out into the biting wind. He didn’t look like he was heading to a meeting or a grocery store; he looked like he was heading toward something much older. There is a specific kind […]
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The Weight of the Silence Photo of the Day
November 16, 2020

The Weight of the Silence

I remember a morning in the high country when the air felt like it had been scrubbed clean by ice. My guide, a man named Elias who had spent sixty years walking these ridges, stopped suddenly and held up a hand. He didn’t point at anything; he just stood there, listening to the absence of […]
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The Weight of the Silence Photo of the Day
November 9, 2020

The Weight of the Silence

I remember sitting in a tea shop in Gangtok, watching an old man stir his cup with a rhythmic, metallic clink. He told me that the mountains don’t speak, but they do listen. He said that if you go high enough, where the air turns thin and sharp, you stop trying to explain your life […]
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The First Leap Photo of the Day
November 6, 2020

The First Leap

I remember standing on the edge of the old stone pier in Cornwall, watching a fledgling swallow try to find its rhythm in the wind. It kept landing on the railing, wings twitching, eyes wide and unblinking, as if measuring the distance between the safety of the wood and the vast, terrifying blue of the […]
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The Art of the Aftermath Photo of the Day
October 13, 2020

The Art of the Aftermath

My grandmother used to say that a kitchen without a little chaos was a kitchen where nothing of consequence had happened. I remember watching her on a Tuesday in July, the air thick with the smell of ginger and charred sugar, the counter covered in a frantic sprawl of discarded husks and sticky bowls. To […]
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The Color of Memory Photo of the Day
September 8, 2020

The Color of Memory

I remember a drive through the high plains of Wyoming, somewhere near Laramie, where the sun began to dip and the entire world shifted its tone. My passenger, a woman named Sarah who had spent her life in the city, suddenly fell silent. She wasn’t looking at the road or the map; she was watching […]
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The Weight of the Morning Photo of the Day
September 7, 2020

The Weight of the Morning

I met a woman named Ibu Sari in a small alleyway in Yogyakarta. She was folding banana leaves with hands that looked like they had been carved from teak wood, steady and stained by years of work. I asked her if she ever grew tired of the repetitive motion, the same market stall, the same […]
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The Quiet After the Storm Photo of the Day
August 30, 2020

The Quiet After the Storm

I remember sitting in a small tea house in the mountains of northern Iran, watching an old man stir his glass with a silver spoon. The room was dim, smelling of damp wool and woodsmoke, but a single shaft of afternoon sun cut through the dust motes, landing squarely on his face. He didn’t look […]
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The Weight of the Game Photo of the Day
August 23, 2020

The Weight of the Game

I remember sitting on a rusted bench in a small town in rural Victoria, watching a group of teenagers play cricket on a pitch that was mostly dust and determination. One girl, Sarah, had been practicing her swing against a brick wall for three hours every afternoon that summer. When I asked her why she […]
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The Map of Salt and Sun Photo of the Day
August 13, 2020

The Map of Salt and Sun

I met a man in a small cafe in Marseille who spent his entire life on a trawler. He didn’t talk about the fish or the money; he talked about the way the wind changed the smell of the horizon before a storm. He had skin like cured leather, mapped with deep, permanent creases that […]
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The Dust of Small Joys Photo of the Day
July 15, 2020

The Dust of Small Joys

My grandmother used to keep a tin of flour on the counter that seemed to have a life of its own. Whenever she baked, a fine, white mist would settle over everything—the wooden table, her knuckles, the stray hairs escaping her bun. She told me once that the mess was the best part, because it […]
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