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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 Quiet Before the Wake Photo of the Day
February 1, 2019

The Quiet Before the Wake

I remember sitting on a stone step in a courtyard in Fez, just as the call to prayer began to ripple across the rooftops. It was that strange, suspended hour when the city is still shaking off the night, but the air is already heavy with the promise of a thousand tasks. An old man […]
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The Weight of Small Things Photo of the Day
January 21, 2019

The Weight of Small Things

I remember a stall in a back alley of Hanoi where an old woman sold nothing but buttons. Thousands of them, sorted into rusted tins by size and shade. I spent an hour there, not because I needed a button, but because the sheer accumulation of small, purposeful things felt like a quiet rebellion against […]
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The Weight of a Tuesday Photo of the Day
January 19, 2019

The Weight of a Tuesday

I remember a boy named Elias I met in a dusty village outside of Marrakech. He was sitting on a stone wall, his hands tucked deep into his pockets, watching the dust motes dance in the late afternoon heat. When I asked him what he was thinking about, he didn’t look up. He just said […]
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The Weight of Silence Photo of the Day
January 18, 2019

The Weight of Silence

I remember sitting in a small tea shop in Leh, watching a young boy help his grandfather sweep the dust from the prayer wheels. He couldn’t have been more than ten, his robes a little too long, his movements deliberate and slow. There was no rush in him, no sense that he was missing out […]
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The Geometry of Waiting Photo of the Day
January 9, 2019

The Geometry of Waiting

I was standing on the corner of 4th and Main, waiting for a bus that was already twenty minutes late. Beside me, an elderly woman in a yellow raincoat was staring intently at the red signal across the street. She didn’t seem bothered by the delay or the drizzle. She told me she liked the […]
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The Weight of a Small Hand Photo of the Day
January 9, 2019

The Weight of a Small Hand

I remember my own grandfather’s hands. They were mapped with deep, permanent lines, stained by years of working with engine oil and garden soil. When he held my hand to cross the street, his grip felt like a tether to the earth itself. He didn’t say much—he was a man of few words and long […]
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The Quietest Hour Photo of the Day
January 7, 2019

The Quietest Hour

I remember sitting by the edge of the pond in the Botanical Gardens just as the humidity began to lift. An elderly man was there, carefully watching a single bloom open, his hands resting motionless on his cane. He told me that if you wait long enough, the world stops trying to be loud. He […]
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The Weight of a Name Photo of the Day
December 17, 2018

The Weight of a Name

I met a man named Elias in a small village in the Pyrenees who spent his entire life tending to the same three acres of terraced stone. When I asked him if he ever felt the pull of the cities, he just laughed and pointed to the callouses on his palms. He told me that […]
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The Weight of Small Things Photo of the Day
December 12, 2018

The Weight of Small Things

I remember a boy named Elias I met in the high pastures of the Pyrenees. He couldn’t have been more than ten, yet he moved with the deliberate, heavy-footed caution of a man who had spent his entire life calculating the needs of others. He was carrying a lamb that had gone lame, his small […]
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The Architecture of Rain Photo of the Day
December 2, 2018

The Architecture of Rain

I remember sitting on a porch in Kerala during the monsoon, watching a single bead of water navigate the surface of a broad, waxy leaf. It didn’t just roll off; it traced a deliberate, winding path, gathering smaller droplets until it became heavy enough to surrender to gravity. My host, a man named Ravi, told […]
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The Weight of the Earth Photo of the Day
December 2, 2018

The Weight of the Earth

I remember a morning in the Punjab, years ago, when the mist was so thick it felt like walking through wet wool. I sat on the edge of a field with a farmer named Malik. He didn’t speak much, but he pointed to the soil, dark and heavy, turning over under the weight of his […]
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The Guarded Threshold Photo of the Day
November 30, 2018

The Guarded Threshold

I remember sitting on a low stone wall in a village outside of Fez, watching a young boy track my every movement from behind a stack of crates. He held his ground with a fierce, quiet intensity, his eyes measuring the distance between us as if I were a puzzle he wasn’t quite ready to […]
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