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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.

626 Published Reflections

Reflections by Tom Bretherton

Showing 12 of 626 essays
The Quiet Language of Proximity Photo of the Day
May 9, 2014

The Quiet Language of Proximity

I once sat on a bench in a crowded station in Lyon, watching an elderly couple wait for a train. They didn’t speak, and they didn’t look at one another, yet their shoulders were pressed together with a deliberate, rhythmic weight. It was a silent conversation built on decades of shared mornings and unspoken agreements. […]
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The Weight of Still Water Photo of the Day
May 7, 2014

The Weight of Still Water

I remember sitting on a wooden jetty in late October, watching a fisherman untangle a net that seemed to have more knots than rope. He didn’t look up when I sat down, but after a while, he gestured toward the water. He told me that the lake had a memory, that it held onto the […]
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The Currency of Seasons Photo of the Day
April 28, 2014

The Currency of Seasons

I remember walking through the woods behind my grandfather’s house in late October, the air sharp enough to sting your lungs. He stopped to pick up a single maple leaf, turning it over in his calloused palm like it was a gold coin. He told me that people spend their whole lives waiting for the […]
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The Weight of What We See Photo of the Day
April 26, 2014

The Weight of What We See

I remember standing on a subway platform in Brooklyn, watching a woman across the tracks. She was staring at a blank concrete wall, her brow furrowed, her lips moving as if she were reciting a list of things she couldn’t afford to forget. She wasn’t looking at the wall at all; she was looking through […]
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The Weight of a Morning Photo of the Day
April 18, 2014

The Weight of a Morning

I remember sitting on a rusted bench in a park in Kyoto, watching a sparrow navigate the space between two cherry trees. It didn’t seem to care about the commuters rushing past or the heavy, grey clouds threatening rain. It had a singular focus—a small, dry twig it was determined to carry to the other […]
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The Art of Staying Still Photo of the Day
April 17, 2014

The Art of Staying Still

I remember sitting on a porch in rural Kansas with an old farmer named Elias. We were watching a storm roll in, the sky turning that bruised, heavy purple that promises rain but delivers only silence. I asked him how he spent his days when the work was done, and he pointed to a patch […]
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The Weight of a Palm Photo of the Day
April 14, 2014

The Weight of a Palm

I remember a woman in a dusty market in Marrakech who reached out and touched my forearm without a word. It wasn’t a transaction. There was no money exchanged, no request for a favor. She simply pressed her hand against my skin for a heartbeat, her eyes fixed on something just past my shoulder, before […]
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The Quiet Pact Photo of the Day
April 13, 2014

The Quiet Pact

I remember sitting on a low stone wall in a coastal village in Cornwall, watching two gulls share a scrap of bread. They didn’t squabble. They didn’t rush. They simply stood side by side, heads tucked into the wind, perfectly content to exist in the same patch of salt-crusted earth. It was a masterclass in […]
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The Weight of a Choice Photo of the Day
April 11, 2014

The Weight of a Choice

I remember a tailor in a small alleyway in Istanbul who kept his spools of thread arranged by the intensity of their color. He told me that people don’t choose a hat or a coat; they choose the version of themselves they want to present to the world that morning. He spent twenty minutes helping […]
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The Art of Being Unseen Photo of the Day
April 1, 2014

The Art of Being Unseen

I spent three hours sitting in a reed bed near the river last Tuesday, waiting for a kingfisher that never showed. My legs had gone numb, and the damp was starting to seep through my coat, but there was a strange comfort in the stillness. When you stop trying to announce your presence to the […]
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Fire Beneath the Infinite Photo of the Day
March 27, 2014

Fire Beneath the Infinite

I remember sitting on a porch in rural Iceland, listening to an old geologist talk about the earth as if it were a living, breathing animal. He told me that we spend our lives walking on a skin that is constantly shifting, stretching, and occasionally tearing open. We like to think of the ground as […]
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Where Time Bends Backward Photo of the Day
March 27, 2014

Where Time Bends Backward

There is an unmistakable soul to places where human hands have labored for centuries without interruption. In the historic workshops of Old Dhaka and traditional artisan villages, the tools are extensions of the body, guided by muscle memory passed from father to son and mother to daughter. In an era dominated by mass production and […]
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