But their faces were hopeful, and now so was I. For me it was a strange, quiet revelation: They were me, as I‘d once been. And I was them, as theycould be. The energy I felt thrumming in that school had nothing to dowith obstacles. It was the power of nine hundred girls striving.
When the performance was done and I went to the lectern to speak, Icould barely contain my emotion. I glanced down at my prepared notesbut suddenly had little interest in them. Looking up at the girls, I justbegan to talk, explaining that though I had come from far away, carryingthis strange title of First Lady of the United States, I was more like them - P319
than they knew. That I, too, was from a working-class neighborhood,
raised by a family of modest means and loving spirit, that I‘d realizedearly on that school was where I could start defining myself—that aneducation was a thing worth working for, that it would help spring themforward in the world.
At this point, I‘d been First Lady for just over two months. In differ-ent moments, I‘d felt overwhelmed by the pace, unworthy of the glam-our, anxious about our children, and uncertain of my purpose. Thereare pieces of public life, of giving up one‘s privacy to become a walking,
talking symbol of a nation, that can seem specifically designed to stripaway part of your identity. But here, finally, speaking to those girls, I feltsomething completely different and pure-an alignment of my old selfwith this new role. Are you good enough? Yes, you are, all of you. I told thestudents of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson that they‘d touched my heart. Itold them that they were precious, because they truly were. And when mytalk was over, I did what was instinctive. I hugged absolutely every singlegirl I could reach. - P320
Optics governed more or less everything in the political world, and I factored this into every outfit. It required time, thought, and - P333
money-more money than I‘d spent on clothing ever before. It also re-quired careful research by Meredith, particularly on foreign trips. She‘doften spend hours making sure the designers, colors, and styles we chosepaid proper respect to the people and countries we visited. Meredith alsoshopped for Sasha and Malia ahead of public events, which added to theoverall expense, but they, too, had the gaze upon them. I sighed some-times, watching Barack pull the same dark suit out of his closet and headoff to work without even needing a comb. His biggest fashion consider-ation for a public moment was whether to have his suit jacket on or off.
Tie or no tie? - P334
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