I have a longstanding fascination with the daily routines of writers, particularly with the psychology behind them.

Due in no small part to the fact that she was formally trained as a psychologist before becoming one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, Anne Truitt (March 16, 1921–December 23, 2004) speaks to this confluence of fascinations in Daybook: The Journal of an Artist (public library) — the superb record of Truitt’s lifetime of reflections on the creative life, which also gave us her wisdom on compassion, humility, and how to cure our chronic self-righteousness and the difference between doing art and being an artist.

In a diary entry from mid-July of 1974, while living at the Yaddo artists’ community at Saratoga Springs, New York, 53-year-old Truitt writes:

I have settled into the most comfortable routine I have ever known in my working life. I wake very early and, after a quiet period, have my breakfast in my room: cereal, fruit, nuts, the remainder of my luncheon thermos of milk, and coffee. Then I write in my notebook in bed. By this time, the sun is well up and the pine trees waft delicious smells into my room. My whole body sings with the knowledge that nothing is expected of me except what I expect of myself. I dress, do my few room chores, walk to the mansion to pick up my lunch box (a sandwich, double fruit, double salad — often a whole head of new lettuce) and thermos of milk, and walk down the winding road to my Stone South studio.

At noon, I stop working, walk up through the meadow to West House, have a reading lunch at my desk, and nap. By 2:30 or so I am back in the studio. Late in the afternoon, I return to my room, have a hot bath and dress for dinner. It is heavenly to work until I am tired, knowing that the evening will be effortless. Dinner is a peaceful pleasure. Afterward I usually return to my solitude, happy to have been in good company, happy to leave it. I read, or write letters, have another hot bath in the semidarkness of my room, and sink quietly to sleep.

But in a culture where we have a painfully hard time savoring solitude, what is more important than Truitt’s routine itself is her articulate awareness of how the formative years of her childhood and upbringing made this capacity for fertile solitude possible. The kind of parenting that fosters secure attachment is perhaps the greatest gift of psychoemotional advantage one could have in life — something psychologists Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon explore in detail in their indispensable book A General Theory of Love. In a diary entry a day later, Truitt reflects on the early freedom her mother gave her, both by personal example and by parenting style:

My mother’s moral force radiated from her like a gentle pulsation. Sensitive people picked it up and found her presence delicately satisfying.

[…]

She was herself only when alone.

[…]

This satisfaction with being solitary was a tremendous source of freedom for me. It implied a delight in self and affirmed my own obsessive sieving of experience. By taking her mind totally off me, she gave me my own autonomy. I knew from experience that she was careful and responsible. I realized that she would have watched me had she not been sure that I was all right. And, if she were sure, I could be sure. Very early in my life, I set out stoutly to look around at everything.

Daybook: The Journal of an Artist is enormously soul-stretching in its entirety. Complement it with the cognitive science of the perfect creative routine, C.S. Lewis on the ideal daily routine, and a stimulating read on why great parenting is about presence rather than praise.