The year ahead
lina's life, vol. 22 | nature + art + movement + thoughts
Dearest,
We have nearly made it through the year and I am doing a premature victory lap.
Christina gifted me Jacqueline Suskin’s A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression for my birthday. In the section dedicated to winter, Suskin shares the practice of journal reviewing, to read through pages from the year, and note patterns, themes, goals, etc., to bring into the next season(s) of creative work.
2025 has been a year of reading and writing. I have read 40 books so far this year, thanks in part to Zoe’s book club and general influence, as well as my own curiosities. I have filled 7 journals this past year, which is something I have never done before in any year of my life. I wrote for at least a half hour every day, which I fully credit to The Artist’s Way.
I wasn’t sure how skimming almost 365 days of writing would make me feel. Ultimately after reading, I could see that I have grown so much, and found that to be encouraging. It has been a hard year, and the hardest moments taught me more about myself. A net positive? Gazing out over the misty east side of Detroit on this grey, gloomy day, I feel optimistic about film projects and the general future. If growth is the continuous gift we give ourselves, I anticipate 2026 to be a year of abundance.
My Top 3 Books & Films of 2025:
Books
Flashlight: A Novel by Susan Choi (Fiction)
One summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old.
Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, is Korean, but was born and raised in Japan; he lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her family. But now it is just Anne and Louisa, adrift and facing the challenges of ordinary life in the wake of catastrophe. United, separated, and also repelled by their mutual grief, they attempt to move on. But they cannot escape the echoes of that night. What really happened to Louisa’s father?
A monumental new novel from the National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a spellbinding, heart-gripping investigation of family, loss, memory, and the ways in which we are shaped by what we cannot see.The Wall by Marlen Haushofer (Fiction)
While vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, a middle-aged woman awakens one morning to find herself separated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall. With a cat, a dog, and a cow as her sole companions, she learns how to survive and cope with her loneliness.
Allegorical yet deeply personal and absorbing, The Wall is at once a critique of modern civilization, a nuanced and loving portrait of a relationship between a woman and her animals, a thrilling survival story, a Cold War-era dystopian adventure, and a truly singular feminist classic.
Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women by Annabel Abbs-Streets (Nonfiction)
…is a beautifully written meditation on connecting with the outdoors through the simple act of walking. In captivating and elegant prose, Annabel follows in the footsteps of women who boldly reclaimed wild landscapes for themselves, including Georgia O’Keeffe in the empty plains of Texas and New Mexico, Nan Shepherd in the mountains of Scotland, Gwen John following the French River Garonne, Daphne du Maurier along the River Rhône, and Simone de Beauvoir―who walked as much as twenty-five miles a day in a dress and espadrilles―through the mountains and forests of France.
Films
Anatomy of a Murder (1959) directed by Otto Preminger
Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim’s mysterious business partner, who’s hiding a dark secret.
One Battle After Another (2025) directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
When their evil nemesis resurfaces after 16 years, a band of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own.
Sorry, Baby (2025) directed by Eva Victor
Agnes feels stuck. Unlike her best friend, Lydie, who’s moved to New York and is now expecting a baby, Agnes still lives in the New England house they once shared as graduate students, now working as a professor at her alma mater. A ‘bad thing’ happened to Agnes a few years ago and, since then, despite her best efforts, life hasn’t gotten back on track.
Honorable mention: Marty Supreme (2025)
Love, and talk to you in the new year,
Lina