How I went looking for my unique duty

2022-06-24

Dear reader,

My 10-year-old calls me a “wise old tree.”

Everytime he does, it touches my soul and crinkles my laugh lines. Being a parent isn’t easy for anyone. I try where I can to use its challenges as a whetstone to clarify and sharpen who I am. The joy and presence I stand for.

I know that my son appreciates it because he thanked me. Sitting under a hemlock tree on Saturday morning, he said he appreciated my advice. Even when it annoys him, he said, he can tell I care. And I love that in calling me an “old tree” he’s both laughing at my age and also, maybe, feeling me with him in my next life.

Over the hill at 43, I’m looking for more ways to be more useful. One is I write down stories.

Not to persuade or to amuse. I do it to leave bread crumbs. This one’s for my son, if he ever needs a change like I did this winter.

My friends have an adorable 3-year-old boy, but had no babysitter for their seventh wedding anniversary on Sunday. I twisted my buddy’s arm, told him I was free all evening. If they wanted to stay out, I’ve read a kid to sleep once or twice.

How could you not love hanging out with this boy? He noticed me looking at the jackalope, a bunny head with deer antlers mounted on the wall. He offered an explanation.

“He used to be alive but then he got hunted,” he said as if he was talking about his dried-up play-doh. No big deal.

I wanted to tell him that the jackalope is a mythical creature, much like affordable childcare that pays a living wage. I wanted to tell him that the jackrabbit-antelope mashup was invented as a gag by Wyoming taxidermists in the 1930s. (A time when our ancestors got creative with what they had to work with.)

But I remembered that I had entered his world for the length of a dinner date, and so I turned off my grownup brain and suggested we go outside. Soon we were out on the driveway, with him doing bike tricks despite the “bike jam” he made me aware of. “There’s 19 bikes,” he pointed.

He’s a budding Vermonter.

We all start off different in some way. Then society and culture tell us how to fit in, how to pick a lane and check off the markers of success. That was me just now. A 3-year-old had just opened a little bit of his world to me. And I was about to read him the Wikipedia entry on jackalopes.

That’s also been a lot of my life up to 43. Checking boxes that I thought meant success. Comfortable desk job. Salary. Benefits. Remote, flexible, mission-driven work. I made a difference and also made IRA contributions most years. And I got a lot done with my professional colleagues that I’m proud of.

And yet with all the privileges I’ve enjoyed, I hadn’t found a way to bring all of myself to work.

Since I was at least 5, I’ve loved to tell stories. Stories that got to the heart of our culture—what works about it and what doesn’t work.

A shy kid, I wrote them down in a spiral notebook. The first ones were paragraph length. By age 10 I’d graduated to typing pages and pages on the boxy PC my dad would bring home from his job.

No sooner was I a writer, than I also became an editor. I’d written “Storys”  in pencil on the green notebook cover. Sometime after learning about plurals ending in -y, I crossed it out, wrote “Stories.” 

In an earlier draft of this essay I reviewed in detail my two-decade career. But my girlfriend, who’s seen my resumé before and who reminds me at bedtime to dream in color, said it was boring. I don’t want to write boring stories, so I’ll cut to the chase.

After I graduated college, the work I could get paid for was more like editing. Most of my professional colleagues know me as a technical writer, a researcher of LEED credit options and reporting thresholds for healthy building products. But as important as those things are, I have more inside me. I wrote on the side on topics close to my heart but did not pursue getting them published.

In February I posted “Retired Storyteller” as my job title in LinkedIn. If I had more space, I might have written: “Tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine. Let’s go for a bike ride and throw the ball for the dog and see what comes along.” 

I don’t know how long I can make it last. Most Vermonters I know have two or three or four ways they make ends meet. I’m no exception. 

I’m consulting part-time for my former full-time client, while keeping a home-equity line of credit for backup. The Halifax Selectboard and the Reformer each pay a stipend. But mostly I’m keeping my calendar free for last-ditch babysitting, mowing the pasture, and some travel. I’m asking questions of all kinds of people that I don’t know the answers to. I’m writing down the stories as bread crumbs for my son. 

Our one-of-a-kind country gave me the freedom and low interest rates to do all that. But I don’t take it for granted. Lady Liberty is only on one face of the classic American Eagle coin.

The other side says E pluribus unum. Official sources translate our nation’s motto from Latin as “Out of many, one.” But if you ask me, it means “Democracy dies if we don’t step up and serve. Find your unique talent and make that your duty.”

People can get called out of retirement, too. I filed last month to run for Vermont State Representative. The hiring process involves an August 9th primary and the November 8th election.

Before filing, I asked legislators if the job changed them. “Could you still be yourself?” I asked.

They said, “You decide.”

As in, I decide who I am. And voters will decide if they want to elect me.

I can’t control that last part. But I know this. I’m a retired storyteller, wise old tree, boyfriend, homesteader, and die-hard believer in our small Vermont towns and the individuals that live and work here. I’m Tristan Roberts and I’m one of a kind.

Who are you? What’s your story? I’d like to know more about you.

By the way, I don’t think you have to retire or go anywhere else to bring your full self to your work and life.

I had a particular upbringing and a set of stories I was given to work with. The stories we’re given are resources that help us survive. They can also become limits. To find your way to your own stories, I recommend traveling into the wilderness at some point.

If I end up earning the privilege to sit at one of these desks in Montpelier, and find the impact that is possible there, it’ll be in part because I found how to bring more of my unique self to the job. Not because I know it will work out—I don’t. Not because I don’t have fears of falling short of my goals—I do.

There is such a thing as finding a place where we can feel more safe to be ourselves. Sharing stories like this on my blog has been a way for me to feel more comfortable being my full self in public.

But I’ve also realized that the flames at the edge of our comfort zone do not need to be a wall. I’m glad that I feel safer in the world, but I also feel a responsibility to go out there whether or not I feel comfortable at all times.

Let me know how your journey is going too!

Growing rings,

Tristan

Quill Nook Farm

P.S. Please check out the values and priorities I have set for my campaign at TristanRoberts.org. And if you have a few bucks to spare, I would be grateful for your donation. I need help getting the word out about the values I represent.