He was not like anyone I’d dated before, mainly because he seemed so secure. He was openly affectionate. He told me I was beautiful. He made me feel good.
Two months later, just weeks before the election, a tape would surface of Donald Trump in an ungaurded moment, bragging to a TV host in 2005 about sexually assaulting women, using language so lewd and vulgar that it put media outlets in a quandary about how to quote it without violating the established stamdards of decency. In the end, the standards of decency were simply lowered in order to make room for the candidate’s voice.
Ghetto” signaled that a place was both black and hopeless. It was a label that foretold failure and then hastened its arrival.
I’d said it casually, but the phrase caught hold and was amplified across the press. Some Americans seemed to embrace it, understanding all too well the amount of organization and drive it takes to raise children. Others, meanwhile, seemed vaguely appalled, presuming it to mean that as First Lady I’d do nothing but pipe-cleaner craft projects with my kids.
I woke one night to find him staring at the ceiling, his profile lit by the glow of streetlights outside. He looked vaguely troubled, as if he were pondering something deeply personal. Was it our relationship? The loss of his father? “Hey, what’re you thinking about over there?” I whispered. He turned to look at me, his smile a little sheepish. “Oh,” he said. “I was just thinking about income inequality.
It was possible... to live on two planes at once – to have one’s feet planted in reality but pointed in the direction of progress. You got somewhere by building that better reality, if at first only in your own mind... You may live in the world as it is, but you can still work to create the world as it should be.
I wasn’t particularly imaginative in how I thought about the future, which is another way of saying I was already thinking about law school.
You don’t know that when a memo arrives to confirm the assignment, some deep and unseen fault line in your life has begun to tremble, that some hold is already starting to slip.
I let his voice be my comfort. It bore no trace of pain or self-pity, carrying only good humor and softness and just the tiniest hint of jazz. I lived on it as if it were oxygen. It was sustaining, and it was always enough.
My team and I persuaded Darden Restaurants, the parent company behind chains like Olive Garden and Red Lobster, to make changes to the kinds of food it offered and how it was prepared. They pledged to revamp their menus, cutting calories, reducing sodium, and offering healthier options for kids’ meals.
Barack was a black man in America, after all. I didn’t really think he could win.
Ahora comprendo que incluso un matrimonio feliz puede ser agotador, que es un contrato que debe renovarse una y otra vez, discreta y calladamente, o incluso a solas.
Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.
Barack’s safety was something I didn’t want to think about, let alone discuss.
Or as Barack had put it that night, you may live in the world as it is, but you can still work to create the world as it should be.
You’ve leaped but you haven’t landed. You can’t know yet how the future’s going to feel. After months of everything going too fast, time slows to an agonizing crawl.
America would bring to Barack Obama the same questions my cousin was unconsciously putting to me that day on the stoop: Are you what you appear to be? Do I trust you or not?
I spent much of 2008 trying not to worry about the punches.
Grief and resilience live together. I learned this not just once as First Lady but many times over.
I considered all these people, current and former staff, to be family. And I was so proud of what we’d done.