One of the books that I remember most vividly from my college years was Mary Catherine Bateson’s “Composing a Life.” Bateson, the daughter of legendary anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, posited in her book that life is “an improvisational art at every age.”
I thought of Bateson’s book a lot as I spent the last year compiling a collection of essays about the legacy of our most recent first lady. Because at the end of the day, I think what has given Michelle Obama so much universal appeal, why her approval ratings have stayed high to the very end, why she has across-the-aisle appeal is because Michelle Obama has come to represent an agility and an authenticity that is of incredible value to women today.
The lessons she has taught us about composing a life are ones that will stay with us, and with our daughters, for decades to come.
Lessons like the importance of putting yourself first – even when you are a mother and a wife, maybe especially when you’re in the midst of marriage or motherhood.
“I have freed myself to put me on the priority list and say, ‘Yes, I can make choices that make me happy, and it will ripple and benefit my kids, my husband, and my physical health,’” the first lady told Prevention magazine. “That’s hard for women to own; we’re not taught to do that. It’s a lesson that I want to teach my girls so they don’t wait for their aha moment until they’re in their 30s like I was (laughs). Maybe they can experience it a little earlier.”
Or when she turned 50 and said, “I have never felt more confident in myself, more clear on who I am as a woman. But I am constantly thinking about my own health and making sure that I’m eating right and getting exercise and watching the aches and pains. I want to be this really fly 80-, 90-year-old.”
I, for one, am saving this particular nugget for when my 9-year-old hits her teens and starts dating: “Cute’s good. But cute only lasts for so long, and then it’s, ‘Who are you as a person?’” Obama told Glamour magazine. “Don’t look at the bankbook or the title. Look at the heart. Look at the soul. When you’re dating a man, you should always feel good. … You shouldn’t be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t make you completely happy and make you feel whole.”
As we move forward into a new administration and a new moment in American history, it is clear that there is much work to be done on both sides of the aisle. If our only tasks in the months ahead were to heal and uplift the Americans who need it most – regardless of where we think they live or what they look like – it would be a staggering challenge.
Throughout her time in the White House, Obama, the daughter of a blue-collar worker who struggled with multiple sclerosis and yet still managed to work every day of his life to put his son and daughter through college, reminded us that the ability to work is a gift. The capability to nurture a dream inside of all that hard work is our uniquely American birthright. I believe we’ll all be able to draw sustenance from her words in the months to come.
“You may not always have a comfortable life,” she once told an audience of young women, gathered at the White House, “and you will not always be able to solve all the world’s problems at once, but don’t ever underestimate the power you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”
As we continue the very necessary business of composing our lives against a changing and tumultuous backdrop of politics and economics, we might do well to start there with Michelle Obama and her benediction of courage and hope.
Veronica Chambers the author of “The Meaning of Michelle: 16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires Our Own.” She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.
