This week’s musing on the art of losing comes from an unexpectedly wise phone call.

To read the daily observations that shaped this episode, find the companion Dailyness newsletter on Substack.

Make the practice your own with a one-hour seminar on how to use daily writing and observation to find presence, clarity, and meaning in the everyday.

Dailyness shifts the focus from what we do, to what we encounter—various quandaries, feelings, and exchanges with our internal and external worlds.

As a companion to her best-selling Substack newsletter Dailyness, each episode is an intimate lecture on the textures of daily life—from distraction and longing, to friendship, solitude, and the possibilities hiding in the ordinary.

Drawing on a decade of work on routines, creativity, and the small stumbles of everyday living, Madeleine extends her personal observation practice to inspire more attention, reflection, and presence.