Welcome to This Spot on Earth. This is a home for a selection of my essays on nature, healing, and family. Other topics include AI, the dignity of loving one’s work, and the weight of something colorless.

I reflect at times on campaigning and then serving my first year in the Vermont House, and some of the experiences that got me there, like visiting George Floyd Square and before that, re-facing a Civil War monument with my son.

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    Tristan Roberts Tristan Roberts

    Expecting Birdie

    I devoted my last column to how I parent my son to grow up feeling secure, capable, and independent. Should I be any different as a dad to a daughter?

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    Tristan Roberts Tristan Roberts

    The last conversation with my father

    Our baby is due August 3, and especially with it being her first, Alison is concerned about whether we’re prepared—for successful nursing, for co-sleeping, for all of it.

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    Tristan Roberts Tristan Roberts

    Three women who changed my mind

    This March, I celebrate Michelle and all of the history-making women in the Vermont Legislature, along with the female constituents whose wisdom I listen to.

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    Tristan Roberts Tristan Roberts

    Dear Digger, hands off my pierogis, Part 2

    “Did you hear about the Polack wolf stuck in a trap?”

    For reasons that remain a mystery to me, Polacks and blondes were the butts of all jokes in my grade school in Schuylerville, N.Y. I heard violence against women and Poles like this and worse twenty times a day between art class and gym.

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    Tristan Roberts Tristan Roberts

    An instant classic

    These days, the Book of Luke has been contrasting in my mind with the Book of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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    Tristan Roberts Tristan Roberts

    On keeping the "uppy" in "puppy"

    “Your dog out-ranks you by one,” said Corporal Dave Robinson at Sunday’s Vets Town Hall at Brattleboro’s American Legion.

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    Tristan Roberts Tristan Roberts

    I believe you, Patience.

    I haven’t seen Patience since high school, but she’s been cemented in my memory since 3rd grade with the peace symbols.

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    Tristan Roberts Tristan Roberts

    Ghost story

    This wouldn’t be a ghost story if it had a solid conclusion. But I pray you heed it well.

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