Three passages from Michelle Obama

From The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times (New York: Crown, 2022).

On navigating the world as someone “different”:

You learn, as my family did, to be watchful. You figure out how to guard your energy, to count every step. And at the heart of this lies a head-spinning paradox: Being different conditions you toward cautiousness, even as it demands that you be bold.

On putting something small, like knitting, alongside big things:

Any time your circumstances start to feel all-consuming, I suggest you try going in the other direction — toward the small. Look for something that'll help you rearrange your thoughts, a pocket of contentedness where you can live for a while. And by this I don't mean sitting passively in front of your television or scrolling through your phone. Find something that’s active, something that asks for your mind but uses your body as well. Immerse yourself in the process. And forgive yourself for temporarily ducking out of the storm.

On seing children growing up. When the Obamas visit Malia and Sasha, who are sharing an apartment in Los Angeles, Malia produces a charcuterie board. And then:

Sasha attempted to fix us a couple of weak martinis — Wait, you know how to make martinis? — and served them in water glasses, first laying down a couple of newly purchased coasters so that we wouldn’t mark up their brand-new coffee table with our drinks.

I watched all this with some astonishment. It’s not that I’m surprised that our kids have grown up, exactly, but somehow the whole scene — the coasters, in particular — signaled a different sort of landmark, the type of thing every parent spends years scanning for, which is evidence of common sense.

As Sasha set down our drinks that night, I thought about all the coasters she and her sister hadn’t bothered to use when they were under our care, all the times over the years I’d tried to get watermarks out of various tables, including at the White House.

But the dynamics had changed. We were at their table now. They owned it, and they were protecting it. Clearly they had learned.

I still find it difficult to believe that Elaine and I had the good fortune to meet both Michelle and Barack Obama in 2004, during Barack Obama’s Senate campaign. And I still find it difficult to believe that our country went from eight years of an Obama presidency to — what? Michelle Obama, too, finds that difficult to believe.

Also by Michelle Obama
From Becoming