Right at home with her career

Her life is certainly not perfect; no life that busy could be. But for someone known for the troubled intimacy of her songs, she sounds remarkably happy.

One secret to that, Williams says, after sending her son off to his first day at kindergarten, is learning to love the balancing act. She doesn’t scold herself for working hard at her career, nor for neglecting it when she’s home in upstate New York.

“I try to use home and the road to balance each other,’’ she says. “My daily life inspires my writing, but I also need to find time to write. And I’m no stranger to walking into Walgreens in high-heeled boots after a gig to buy diapers. I actually enjoy that multitasking - you know, making the tour bus stop at a toy store.’’

This mature, measured contentment fills her latest album, “Promised Land,’’ which entered the Billboard album chart at No. 95. In the gorgeous “Book of Love,’’ she asks the secret questions we all do: Will I find love? Will it last? Am I worthy? Acknowledging her past follies, vanities, and mistakes, she concludes: “This is who I am . . . the fondness and regret, and every love that I’ve been in. . . . And no matter what the ending is, the story of my life is the book of love.’’

Recalling her Boston days, Williams admits that another secret to having your dreams come true is picking the right dreams.

“My original goal was to sell out Passim and to make as much money as a tenured first-grade teacher,’’ she says, laughing loudly. “So every time something happens that feels like a bump in the road, I think, well, Dar, given your expectations, there’s not much to complain about.’’

She credits much of that realistic dreaming to her first managers, the Arlington-based Young/Hunter, who specialize in building sustainable, folk-sized careers, and who handle perennial headliners like Chris Smither, Peter Mulvey, and Kris Delmhorst.

“My managers always talked about building an indestructible career,’’ Williams says. “That meant playing every little place I could at first, finding fans one by one.’’

She now seeks a balance in her career and in her life. The album before “Promised Land’’ did poorly; but what pleased her more than the new one’s success was that neither album had an appreciable effect on her touring career or fan base. Her highs may not be as high as some, but neither are the lows as low.

Of those lean Boston years, Williams says, “There’s a certain dreaminess to that lonely longing, when you know your life will be completely different in three years, but you don’t know how. That’s so different from what you feel when you’re in a house you know you want to stay in for the next 50 years.’’

Sighing deeply, she is quiet for a moment, remembering. “We go through so much change in our 20s and 30s,’’ she says softly, “before things become more solid, like our careers or friendships or principles. Then at some point, we begin to look back with a certain nostalgia and respect, saying, look how I was able to do all those things - and conveniently forgetting how terrible it was. But I did that work, so now, today, all I have to decide is whether I’m going to put arugula or beets in this little corner of the garden. And that’s a pretty nice place to be.’’