I was female, black, and strong, which to certain people, maintaining a certain mind-set, translated only to “angry.
Nobody who has the words “first” and “black” attached to them ever would. I stood at the foot of the mountain, knowing I’d need to climb my way into favor.
I understand now that even a happy marriage can be a vexation, that it’s a contract best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately – even alone.
Unspoken was the fact that he could just go. He could walk out the door and catch a cab to the airport and still make it to Springfield in time to vote. He could leave his sick daughter and fretting wife halfway across the Pacific and go join his colleagues. It was an option. But I wasn’t going to martyr myself by suggesting it.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s the power of using your voice. I tried my best to speak the truth and shed light on the stories of people who are often brushed aside.
My early successes in life were, I knew, a product of the consistent love and high expectations with which I was surrounded as a child, both at home and at school.
When I thought I had a good idea about something, I didn’t like being told no.
This is doable, of course – minority and underprivileged students rise to the challenge all the time – but it takes energy. It takes energy to be the only black person in a lecture hall or one of a few nonwhite people trying out for a play or joining an intramural team. It requires effort, an extra level of confidence, to speak in those settings and own your presence in the room.
My friends made me whole, as they always have and always will.
If I died, I didn’t want people remembering me for the stacks of legal briefs I’d written or the corporate trademarks I’d helped defend. I felt certain that I had something more to offer the world. It was time to make a move.
We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with us.
In the presence of his certainty, his notion that he could make some sort of difference in the world, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit lost by comparison. His sense of purpose seemed like an unwitting challenge to my own.
As the dogs loped off to explore the perimeter of the yard, I ate my toast in the dark, feeling alone in the best possible way.
Almost from the minute we agreed it would be ok for him to run, Barack became a kind of human blur, a pixelated version of the guy I knew-.
I hadn’t believed it was possible, but maybe now I did. This was the call-and-response of democracy, I realized, a contract forged person by person. You show up for us, and we’ll show up for you. I had fifteen thousand more reasons to want Barack to win.
Three times over the course of the fall of 2011, Barack proposed bills that would create thousands of jobs for Americans, in part by giving states money to hire more teachers and first responders. Three times the Republicans blocked them, never even allowing a vote.
Barack and I developed a special fondness for Queen Elizabeth, who reminded Barack of his no-nonsense grandmother. Over the course of many visits she showed me that humanity is more important than protocol or formality.
Southside spoiled the dog the same way he spoiled me, with food and love and tolerance, all of it a silent, earnest plea never to leave him.
Life with Barack would never be dull.
And in the end, I hadn’t needed to show her anything. I was only showing myself.