DAILY NOTES
and
BI-WEEKLY ESSAYS
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Yesterday was quintessential winter here in southeastern Michigan. Finally. We rounded the corner of subzero temperatures, arriving at a balmy twenty-four degrees with full sun over a pristine quilting of deep snow. I took a loop around the lake, shedding my gloves and wishing I hadn’t worn a coat. This…
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How long do I have before writing ‘Happy New Year’ is gauche and annoying? Bah. If it’s one thing you can count on me for, it’s to resist convention… Happy 2026 to all! As some of you have likely noticed, I spent nearly the entire final months of ‘25 away…
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Maybe it was the swelling and deflating of the moon. Or the early morning discoveries of dog shit, conspicuously gifted directly under my writing desk. Could very well have been my mother-in-law’s week-long Halloween visit, sleeping on our basement couch instead of a bed like a normal human, or the…
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First this week, a very warm virtual hug to my new readers. I’m so happy we found each other and am deeply grateful for your time and attention. You may have gotten a hint of it from the story that brought you here—I write Caravan to connect, and hopefully to…
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Our youngest is a second grader at a Montessori school here in town. It’s superbly run, culturally and economically diverse, and a seven minute drive from home (a daily jackpot when you’ve got three kids at three different schools). Just writing this out grows my heart three sizes from gratitude.…
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One of the things I love most about writing this newsletter is the conversation it stimulates. Your responses, while never expected, delight, humble and fortify me each and every time. It was one of these replies that forced a bulb of an idea into action, from a reader of this…
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At a certain juncture in a ‘mature’ life, moving any one piece of the puzzle can be not only disorienting, but potentially destructive. Sure, we all learn new things, do new things, try to follow our curiosities when we can. But, habits make the world go ‘round.
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We live in an era of influence, constant and insidious; there’s little to be argued here. We’re also managing our way through (and hopefully out of) a phase of hyper-connectedness, a state of mass co-dependency that serves our now ingrained need for the validation of our own experience.
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You know that thing that happens, the chaos magic of a song, piece of art, conversation or book that seems to have chosen you for and in this exact moment instead of you choosing it? It’s just as often a delight as it is insult to injury.
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We’ve waited a year for this day. Not because tonsillectomies are in greater demand, supplies stuck outside the Port of Los Angeles because our local hospital can’t afford the tariffs, but because, well… life timing, I guess.
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Take an inventory, if you don’t regularly already, of the number of times per day you feel disappointed by someone or something—of having received less than you were reasonably qualified for.
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In my groupie days, in the mid to late 90’s, I was deeply embedded within a Venn Diagram of local bands. Nearly all of them were students at the University of Michigan School of Music—current, former and honorably discharged—and played in various combinations and genres over a few heady years.
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I’ve been on a college radio streaming kick this last week, more consistently than is usual, and due in large part to a recent (and very terrific) essay collab on ghosting Spotify by Kate Ellen and Seth Werkheiser. Kate and Seth together examine our zombie-like patronage of Spotify…
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Independent longform writing is still having it’s moment. And feel how you may about the various methods of sharing/reading it (Substack v. Medium v. Kit v. Flodesk v. zero platform allegiance, the list continues to lengthen), there’s clearly a need to both contribute and receive.
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How many of us have shelved our dreams because someone or something discouraged us? How many of us kept them to ourselves because ambition felt somehow wrong, inappropriate or selfish? I’ll tell you how many. TOO MANY.
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I’m not entirely sure yet how to say this, so I’m just going for it. I need something from you. From all of you. I need you to make art.
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When we connect with our purpose, when we live it and operate from its instruction manual, the effect accumulates. Our purpose becomes communal. Our purpose changes things.
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January is on its way out, the herd of new runners in my neighborhood has already thinned, the onslaught of talk on intentions and newness and break-taking, dulled to a murmur. And here in the US, Inauguration Day has finally passed. We’re settling in, aren’t we? And it’s all good,…
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In hindsight—one of weeks, not yet months—the decision seems so petty, goofy nearly. To change my relationship with technology. Like, really change. Stem to gudgeon, as my 93 year-old grandmother still says. Deadly. And by technology I mean exactly the thing you’d guess, my smartphone and every single sub-portal to…
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It’s an auspicious time—seasonally, metaphysically, astronomically and astrologically, politically. An adverb bonanza. Here in the midwestern US where we live, it’s heavy duty composting season. Trees shedding layers just as quickly as we humans add them, winds sending encyclopedic parades of cloud formations overhead on the hour, and of course……
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How physicians are unwittingly robbing women of their bodily autonomy Milestones abound this week. Our oldest starts his freshman year in high school, our middle, first year of middle, and our youngest, first grade. It’s big and exciting, and it all feels very new all of a sudden. Not unlike…
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And what my six year-old son has to say about it When I get lit up on an idea, there’s typically an easy and obvious correlation to what flipped the switch. There’s an article, a personal experience, a client session, a conversation that sets the current flowing. Something will strike…
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On Our President, My Father-in-Law, Autonomy and Sacrifice I’ve done a lot of quitting in my life. It’s the natural conclusion of many a thing, of course. Circumstance, aka The Universe, has fairly outsized influence. There’s a sure difference however, between a person making the decision to quit—to stop doing…
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How ‘staying in the bend’ led me straight into a breakthrough My husband is into some crazy-ass shit. He’s an engineer by trade and paid profession, and also a painter, collage artist, furniture maker, sculptor and all-around tinkerer. He once told me ‘there’s nothin’’ he can’t fix, and his track…
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A conversation with Kevin Alexander from On Repeat I’m thrilled and honored to share today’s post—a written conversation with fellow Substack contributor Kevin Alexander of On Repeat. I’ve admired Kevin’s work from the get-go here, but wouldn’t have imagined we’d ultimately collaborate… until, of course, it became clear we absolutely…
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When we have to refuse so we can remake I promise. The story I’m about to tell you has a happy ending. Three days ago, late morning, atypically empty house. I lay with my flushed forehead on the granite countertop in our kitchen, arms cocooning my head, protecting me from…
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Why do we deny ourselves the gift of possibility? Eleven years ago, I was in the raptor’s grip of a psychotic break. It felt like my sanity was being drawn and quartered, ripped apart from opposing directions—from my family, my friends, myself and, most brutally, from the man who had…
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And American individualism isn’t doing us any favors I was directed this morning to a piece here on Substack by the terrific , about a generous letter of support Louisa May Alcott wrote in response to a request of advice from a young female writer. Unmapped Storylands with Elif Shafak…
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I was too busy being a woman This is not the post I intended for today. I had a rather long and sticky piece queued up, on our (distinctly American, but continuously bleeding into the global community) wounded relationship with paid work; on how and why we labor for money.…
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Start here to find out where we’re going, how, and why the heck. Hi, I’m Bree, and I’m really, truly, thrilled we’re both here. I’m here because I love stories; telling them, sharing them, reading them. Absorbing them into my mind, heart and gut, letting them twist about as they…
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Newtonian physics and a phantom’s directive show me how it’s done I woke up this morning thinking about space. Not planetary space, as in the cosmos, or physical space, like the Michigan chill I could feel on the other side of the duvet pulled to my ears, but metaphysical space.…
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And it does involve both discomfort and time I’m writing this from my third coffee shop of the day, and it’s just now noon. This isn’t at all my normal style. I do enjoy, and often find great focus from, working in public spaces, particularly those that hit the very…
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Working in tens can change how you think about your past AND your future Welcome to Caravan, a bi-weekly newsletter where I explore and report on the human experience, mashing science with the unknowable, sharing actionable ideas for designing the life you want. If you missed my introduction post, or…
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Welcome to our point of departure. And away we go… Hello Hi! And Happy New Year! It’s my great pleasure to introduce you to: Caravan. A bi-weekly (for now) newsletter where I’ll be exploring a smattering of concepts and theories, daydreams and science, all on the greater theme of maximizing…
Bree Stilwell 