드디어 다 읽었다! 문장 자체는 간결하나 빽빽한 분량에다 모르는 단어들이 꽤 있어서 대충 유추하며 힘겹게 읽었다.남편을 공공재로 내어 놓는(허락하는?) 삶이란, 공공재인 남편과 함께 하는 삶이란, 강건하게 희생을 받아들이며 살아야 하는 삶이다. 원하지 않지만 스스로도 공공재가 되어야 하는 삶이다.그리하여 그럼에도 미쉘은 자기 역할을 찾아서, 블랙 피플과 소수자들, 아이들 특히, 여자아이들의 건강권과 학습권에 대한 캠페인을 벌이며 희망과 격려를 전파한다. 그녀의 다정하고 부드러운 마음, 때론 강한 의지를 책 전체에서 느낄 수 있다.그나저나 이 책을 통해 미국의 총기 관련 사건 사고의 심각함에 대해 다시금 알 수 있었다. 흑인 청년들에 대한 경찰의 과잉진압 문제도. 총기 규제는 영원히 풀지 못할 문제인가.
He read all of it, seeing it as part of the responsibility that came withthe oath. He had a hard and lonely job-the hardest and loneliest in theworld, it often seemed to me-but he knew that he had an obligation tostay open, to shut nothing out. While the rest of us slept, he took downthe fences and let everything inside. - P350
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
I saw more of Valerie than I did of Susan, but I took careful noteof everything each of them did, similarly to how I‘d observed Czerny,my college mentor. These were women who knew their own voices andwere unafraid to use them. They could be humorous and humble whenthe moment called for it, but they were unfazed by blowhards and didn‘tsecond-guess the powerin their own points of view. Also, importantly, they were working moms. I watched them closely in this regard as well,knowing that I wanted someday to be one myself. Valerie never hesitatedto step out of a big meeting when a call came in from her daughter‘sschool. Susan, likewise, dashed out in the middle of the day if one of hersons spiked a fever or was performing in a preschool music show. Theywere unapologetic about prioritizing the needs of their children, even ifit meant occasionally disrupting the flow at work, and didn‘t try to com-partmentalize work and home the way I‘d noticed male partners at Sidleyseemed to do. I‘m not sure compartmentalization was even a choice forValerie and Susan, given that they were juggling the expectations uniqueto mothers and were also both divorced, which came with its own emo-tional and financial challenges. They weren‘t striving for perfect, butmanaged somehow to be always excellent, the two of them bound in a - P168
deep and mutually helpful friendship, which also made a real impressionon me. They‘d dropped any masquerade and were just wonderfully, powerfully, and instructively themselves. - P169