staffers drove the routes I’d take to venues, timing my transit down to the
minute, scheduling my bathroom breaks in advance. Agents took my girls to
playdates. Housekeepers collected our dirty laundry. I no longer drove a car or
carried things like cash or house keys. Aides took phone calls, attended meetings,
and drafted statements on my behalf.
All of this was marvelous and helpful, freeing me up to focus on the things I
felt were most important. But occasionally it left me—a detail person—feeling as
if I’d lost control of the details. Which is when the lions and cheetahs started to
lurk.
There was also much that couldn’t be planned for, a larger unruliness that
paced the borders of our every day. When you’re married to the president, you
come to understand quickly that the world brims with chaos, that disasters unfurl
without notice. Forces seen and unseen stand ready to tear into whatever calm
you might feel. The news could never be ignored: An earthquake devastates
Haiti. A gasket blows five thousand feet underwater beneath an oil rig off the
coast of Louisiana, sending millions of barrels of crude oil gushing into the Gulf
of Mexico. Revolution stirs in Egypt. A gunman opens fire in the parking lot of
an Arizona supermarket, killing six people and maiming a U.S. congresswoman.
Everything was big and everything was relevant. I read a set of news clips
sent by my staff each morning and knew that Barack would be obliged to absorb
and respond to every new development. He’d be blamed for things he couldn’t
control, pushed to solve frightening problems in faraway nations, expected to
plug a hole at the bottom of the ocean. His job, it seemed, was to take the chaos
and metabolize it somehow into calm leadership—every day of the week, every
week of the year.
I tried as best I could not to let the roiling uncertainties of the world impact
my day-to-day work as First Lady, but sometimes there was no getting around it.
How Barack and I comported ourselves in the face of instability mattered. We
understood that we represented the nation and were obligated to step forward
and be present when there was tragedy, or hardship, or confusion. Part of our
role, as we understood it, was to model reason, compassion, and consistency.
After the BP oil spill—the worst in U.S. history—had finally been contained,
many Americans were still rattled, unwilling to believe it was safe to return to the
Gulf of Mexico for vacation, causing local economies to suffer. So we made a
family trip to Florida, during which Barack took Sasha for a swim, releasing a
photo to the media that showed the two of them splashing happily in the surf. It