These were children, asking not just why but why so often?
I will forever associate with New Yorkers – an instinctive and immediate push back against thinking small. She climbed out of the car, giving me no choice but to drive. ‘Get over it and just live a little’ was her message.
In Hawaii, Barack’s intense and brainy side receded somewhat, while the laid-back part of him flourished. He was at home. And home was where he didn’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone.
I also learned that being rich didn’t protect you from failure.
Failure is a feeling long before it is an action.
Her goal was to push us out into the world. “I’m not raising babies,” she’d tell us. “I’m raising adults.
Food tastes like nothing. Colors go flat. Music hurts, and so do memories. You look at something you’d otherwise find beautiful – a purple sky at sunset or a playground full of kids – and it only somehow deepens the loss. Grief is so lonely this way.
The private area of the White House occupies about twenty thousand square feet on the top two stories of the main historical structure – the one you’d recognize from photos with its iconic white pillars.
Our presence in the White House had been celebrated by millions of Americans, but it also contributed to a reactionary sense of fear and resentment among others. The hatred was old and deep and as dangerous as ever.
I felt sometimes like a swan on a lake, knowing that my job was in part to glide and appear serene, while underwater I never stopped pedaling my legs.
There was also a nearby Container Store and a Chipotle, which made things even better. This was my place.
Barack’s head was an overpacked suitcase of information, a mainframe from which he could seemingly pull disparate bits of data at will.
Daddy, are you gonna try to be president?” she’d asked. “Don’t you think maybe you should be vice president or something first?
I had peers who were always a step or two ahead of me, whose achievements seemed effortless, but I tried not to let that get to me. I was beginning to understand that if I put in extra hours of studying, I often close the gap. I wasn’t a straight-A student, but I was always trying, and there were semesters when I got close.
What struck me was how assured he seemed of his own direction in life. He was oddly free from doubt, though at first glance it was hard to understand why.
It’s taken us time – years – to understand that this is just how each of us is built, that we are each the sum total of our respective genetic codes as well as everything installed in us by our parents and their parents before them.
While we stayed rent-free in the residence and had our utilities and staffing paid for, we nonetheless covered all other living expenses, which seemed to add up quickly, especially given the fancy-hotel quality of everything. We got an itemized bill each month for every food item and roll of toilet paper.
I think what I experienced during those years is what many did – a sense of progress, the comfort of compassion, the joy of watching the unsung and invisible find some light. A glimmer of the world as it could be. This was our bid for permanence: a rising generation that understood what was possible – and that even more was possible for them. Whatever was coming next, this was a story we could own.
The last commencement I attended that spring was personal – Malia’s graduation from Sidwell Friends, held on a warm day in June.
And heaven, as I envisioned it, had to be a place full of jazz.