named Lin-Manuel Miranda stood up and astonished everyone with a piece from
a project he was just beginning to put together, describing it as a “concept album
about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop...Treasury secretary
Alexander Hamilton.”
I remember shaking his hand and saying, “Hey, good luck with the
Hamilton thing.”
In any given day, we were exposed to so much. Glamour, excellence,
devastation, hope. Everything lived side by side, and all the while we had two
kids trying to lead their own lives apart from what was going on at home. I did
what I could to keep myself and the girls integrated into the everyday world. My
goal was what it had always been—to find normalcy where I could, to fit myself
back into pockets of regular life. During soccer and lacrosse seasons, I went to
many of Sasha’s and Malia’s home games, taking my place on the sidelines
alongside other parents, politely turning down anyone who asked to take a photo,
though I was always happy to make small talk. After Malia started tennis, I mostly
watched her matches through the window of a Secret Service vehicle parked
discreetly near the courts, not wanting to create a distraction. Only when it was
over would I emerge to give her a hug.
With Barack, we’d all but given up on normalcy or there being any sense of
lightness in his movements. He attended school functions and the girls’ sporting
events as he could, but his opportunities to mingle were limited, and the presence
of his security detail was never subtle. The point, in fact, was to be unsubtle—to
send a clear message to the world that nobody could harm the president of the
United States. For obvious reasons, I was glad for this. But juxtaposed against the
norms of family life, it could be a little much.
This same thought would occur to Malia one day as Barack and I were
heading with her to one of Sasha’s events at Sidwell’s lower school. The three of
us were crossing an open outdoor courtyard, passing a group of kindergartners in
the middle of their recess, swinging from a set of monkey bars and running
around the wood-chipped play area. I’m not sure if the little kids had spotted the
squad of Secret Service snipers dressed all in black and spread out across the
rooftops of the school buildings with their assault rifles visible, but Malia had.
She looked from the snipers to the kindergartners, then back to her father,
giving him a teasing look. “Really, Dad?” she said. “Seriously?”
All Barack could do was smile and shrug. There was no ducking the
seriousness of his job.