Princess dreams

 I have been wondering about Michelle Obama. 

What must it be like to be living at the White House?  Drive with  body guards everywhere?  Sleep in a room full of furniture someone else picked long ago?

Every other presidential family seemed to have come with prior experience.  The Bush clan had been in politics for decades, the Clintons had lived in the Arkansas governor's house, the Regans were celebrities.  But the Obamas seemed to have been a regular family until now: mom, dad, the two kids and grandmother - folks with a regular house, jobs, responsibilities, the ability to make their own tuna sandwich for lunch.  At least that's what the press wants me to think.

What would it be like to not be able to go to the movies anymore?  Or the grocery store?  Or to my kid's ball games?  To have to worry about wandering into the kitchen in my jammies at night?  To be photographed all the time?  Listened to?  Watched?  Commented upon?  To have redeemed my personal freedom and that of my family for my husband's career? 

I watched the inauguration last week, all alone in front of the small TV set in my son's room.  After the oath, I stood up and clapped and wished the new President and his family well.   They'll need it.  I am not sure that my clapping made any difference but I like to think it added to the general buoyancy of the day. 

That night, I caught a glimpse of the first ball over the internet.  I saw the President dancing with his wife.  They looked happy and normal.  Then a photograph was released showing the President and first lady before that ball.  They were riding a freight elevator.  She was cold so, like any other husband, he had taken off his jacket to cover her shoulders.  

It's a lovely picture.  It's the middle-age version of the princess story.

"See," that picture says, "if your husband were the president, he would still love you, put his jacket on your shoulder, be madly in love with you and treat you like a princess." Sounds good to me.  But my sweetheart put a blanket over my shoulders when I was napping this afternoon.  And since he's not the President we got to go to the grocery store together without our small army of secret servicemen parting the crowds before us.  And I'll get to sleep in the safety of near-total anonymity tonight. 

Maybe we could repaint the house white and leave it at that. 

Comments

[Emily H]

So I just caught myself up on your blogs because I hadn't read them in a while, and they were wonderfully entertaining. I especially liked your resolutions...especially the one to not fold clothes anymore :]

[Marie-Pierre Stien]

Thanks Emily. It hasn't worked so far but we are only a few weeks into the year. There's still hope.