Branches Book

BRANCHES

cold fingertips on my cheek. They felt like ice and I felt myself shiver. You spoke in a raspy whisper. “I’m so proud of you, honey. Could you get me something to drink?”

Author’s Statement: Sophie Levy

I have always loved stories. They broaden our experience, deepen our compassion and challenge us to be empathetic and open as agents of change. For me, writing has always been an outlet and a tool for both expression and for empathy. Having first stemmed from a love of language, the employment of writing creatively in my own life has become a tool to explore the complexity of human vulnerability and interaction. From a young age, I would keep a journal by my bedside, always available so that I could jot down thoughts and feelings that wound their way out of me, sometimes in the dead of night. I wrote about my own feelings but also, perhaps more often, I wrote about the experience of others, whose experiences in life I couldn’t necessarily share but felt a need to express through my own eyes. This piece, “Red Wine,” is a blend of fiction and nonfiction as I strive to grapple with my father’s experience as a child. I chose to write in the second person as a strategy to understand someone else’s experiences as my own. Writing this piece was a challenge, because it forced me to access a painful memory of someone I loved. Although my original intention with this piece was to better understand the person this piece was about, my dad, it forced me look inward at my own self. While writing the piece I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have made the same decisions if it had been me in his situation. After accepting that this was an inevitable aspect of the writing process, I was able to finish this piece with confidence and efficiency. Writing “Red Wine” ultimately became an attempt to access and process my dad’s own history as I discover the nature of my own identity.

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