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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 the Tide Photo of the Day
August 8, 2016

The Weight of the Tide

I spent an afternoon in a small coastal village in Cornwall watching an old fisherman named Elias mend his nets. He didn’t look up much, but he told me that the sea never really takes anything away; it only rearranges it. He pointed to the jagged, dark stones along the shoreline, polished smooth by decades […]
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The Sweetness of Patience Photo of the Day
August 6, 2016

The Sweetness of Patience

I remember sitting in a small kitchen in Amman, watching my grandmother prepare a dessert that required three days of waiting. She didn’t rush the cooling or the setting. She told me that the best things in life are not just made; they are allowed to happen. We spent the afternoon talking about nothing in […]
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The Art of the Everyday Photo of the Day
August 6, 2016

The Art of the Everyday

My grandmother used to say that the most important meal of the day wasn’t breakfast, but the one you took the time to actually look at. I remember sitting in her kitchen in Leeds, watching her arrange a simple slice of bread and a few berries on a chipped ceramic plate. She didn’t do it […]
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The Weight of Silence Photo of the Day
August 5, 2016

The Weight of Silence

I remember a boy in a village outside of Luang Prabang who wore a heavy, oversized hoodie despite the humid heat of the morning. He sat on the edge of a wooden bench, his hands tucked deep into his pockets, watching the dust motes dance in the shafts of light cutting through the classroom slats. […]
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The Faith of the Sidewalk Photo of the Day
July 25, 2016

The Faith of the Sidewalk

I remember a Tuesday in mid-November when the rain turned the city streets into mirrors. I was ducking into a coffee shop on 181st Street, trying to escape a sudden downpour, when I saw an old man standing perfectly still amidst the frantic rush of commuters. He wasn’t waiting for a bus or checking his […]
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The Weight of a Gaze Photo of the Day
July 12, 2016

The Weight of a Gaze

I remember sitting in a tea stall in Pushkar, watching the dust settle on the main road as the afternoon heat began to break. An old woman sat across from me, her face partially obscured by the heavy fabric of her veil. We didn’t share a language, but when she looked up, the intensity of […]
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The Weight of the Day Photo of the Day
July 4, 2016

The Weight of the Day

I remember a morning in a small village outside of Luang Prabang where the air felt heavy with the scent of damp earth and woodsmoke. I watched a young boy, no older than ten, walking along the roadside with a bundle of grass strapped to his back that looked nearly as wide as he was. […]
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Gravity is Only a Suggestion Photo of the Day
July 4, 2016

Gravity is Only a Suggestion

I remember a summer in Marseille when I watched a group of boys jumping from the old stone pier into the harbor. They didn’t look at the water; they looked at the sky. There was a specific, fleeting second at the apex of their leap where they seemed to hang suspended, completely untethered from the […]
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The Weight of the Sun Photo of the Day
July 1, 2016

The Weight of the Sun

I remember a summer in a small town where the heat felt like a physical weight, pressing down on the tin roofs until the air shimmered and turned sour. We were children then, and the only way to survive the afternoon was to find the deepest, darkest shade or the coldest water we could reach. […]
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The Quiet Between Steps Photo of the Day
June 30, 2016

The Quiet Between Steps

I remember sitting on a stone bench in a courtyard in Kyoto, watching a group of school children rush past in a blur of navy blue uniforms. They were shouting, laughing, and chasing the pigeons, completely consumed by the noise of their own momentum. Just a few feet away, an elderly man sat perfectly still, […]
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The Architecture of the Bloom Photo of the Day
June 24, 2016

The Architecture of the Bloom

I spent an hour last Tuesday sitting on a bench in the park, watching a bumblebee work a patch of lavender. It was methodical, almost frantic, moving with a singular, buzzing purpose that made my own morning of emails and errands feel entirely inconsequential. We tend to view a garden as a static backdrop, a […]
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The Weight of the Small Photo of the Day
June 20, 2016

The Weight of the Small

I remember sitting in the damp moss of a creek bed in the Dandenongs, watching a beetle navigate a fallen leaf. It was a slow, deliberate process, the creature treating every ridge and vein like a mountain range. We spend so much of our lives looking at the horizon, waiting for the big shifts, the […]
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