$ touch x/.writable
$ find . -name .writable
# => ./x/.writable
$ find . -name .writable | xargs -I % dirname %
# => ./x
$ find . -name .writable | xargs -I % echo `dirname %`
# => .

# Same behavior with -exec
$ find . -name .writable -exec dirname {} \;
# => ./x
$ find . -name .writable -exec echo `dirname {}` \;
# => .