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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 Long Road Home Photo of the Day
May 11, 2016

The Long Road Home

I remember driving through Bastrop just as the heat began to break, somewhere around six in the evening. There was a man at a roadside stand selling peaches, his hands stained with the dust of the orchard. He told me that in Texas, you don’t watch the sun go down to mark the end of […]
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The Architecture of Silence Photo of the Day
May 9, 2016

The Architecture of Silence

I remember sitting in a small, dust-moted library in Fez, watching an old man handle a manuscript as if it were made of pressed air. He didn’t read it so much as he let it breathe, turning the pages with a reverence that made the rest of the room feel loud and unnecessary. We spend […]
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The Architecture of Sight Photo of the Day
April 28, 2016

The Architecture of Sight

I remember the house my grandmother lived in during the summers in Cornwall. It was a thick-walled cottage where the air always felt heavy, trapped by stone that had been baking in the sun for centuries. One afternoon, my uncle decided to knock a small opening into the north wall. I watched as he swung […]
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The Weight of the Watch Photo of the Day
April 28, 2016

The Weight of the Watch

I once sat in a small wooden boat off the coast of Vancouver Island while an old fisherman named Elias cleaned his catch. He didn’t look up when the gulls circled or when the wind shifted; he kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, a habit born of decades spent reading the weather. He told […]
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The Pulse of the Concrete Photo of the Day
April 20, 2016

The Pulse of the Concrete

I remember sitting on a bench in a crowded station in London, watching the commuters spill out of the trains like water from a broken pipe. A woman in a sharp grey suit stopped right in front of me, checked her watch three times in ten seconds, and then just stood there, staring at the […]
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The Weight of Silence Photo of the Day
April 18, 2016

The Weight of Silence

I remember sitting on a pier in Cornwall with an old fisherman named Elias. The tide was pulling out, leaving behind a vast, wet expanse of sand that looked like a mirror for the clouds. I asked him if he ever got tired of the emptiness, of the way the coast seemed to swallow sound […]
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The Stage of Childhood Photo of the Day
April 16, 2016

The Stage of Childhood

I remember a dusty alleyway in Marrakech where three boys suddenly stopped their game of marbles the moment they saw me. They didn’t run; instead, they straightened their shirts, puffed out their chests, and began to march with the exaggerated seriousness of soldiers on parade. It was a transformation that happened in a heartbeat. We […]
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The Currency of Joy Photo of the Day
April 7, 2016

The Currency of Joy

I remember sitting in a small roadside warung in Ubud, watching a group of children play a game with nothing more than a handful of smooth river stones and a patch of dirt. They didn’t have toys, and they certainly didn’t have a plan, yet the air around them felt heavy with a kind of […]
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The Language of Wonder Photo of the Day
April 2, 2016

The Language of Wonder

I remember a morning in a small village in the mountains where the silence was so heavy it felt like a physical weight. I was sitting on a stone wall, trying to sketch the valley, when a group of children appeared from behind a cluster of pine trees. They didn’t speak my language, and I […]
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The Grace of Letting Go Photo of the Day
April 1, 2016

The Grace of Letting Go

I remember sitting on a bench in a small park in Kyoto, watching a woman try to corral her silk scarf as the wind whipped through the trees. She wasn’t frustrated; she was laughing, her hands dancing in the air to catch the fabric as it spiraled upward. It was a brief, chaotic ballet that […]
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The Blur of Becoming Photo of the Day
March 31, 2016

The Blur of Becoming

I remember sitting on a low stone wall in a village outside of Florence, watching a group of teenagers race their bicycles down the hill. They were moving so fast that their faces were just smudges of color against the olive trees. One boy, trailing behind, hit a bump and his expression shifted—a sudden, wide-eyed […]
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The Weight of the Horizon Photo of the Day
March 29, 2016

The Weight of the Horizon

I remember sitting on a rusted bench in a coastal town in Sicily, watching an old fisherman mend his nets. He didn’t look up when I sat down, but he spoke as if we were in the middle of a long conversation. He told me that the sea is a liar because it promises you […]
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