some point. Because with a garden you never know for sure what will or won’t happen—whether anything, in fact, will grow. We’d invited the media to cover the planting. We’d invited all the White House chefs to help us, along with Tom Vilsack, Barack’s secretary of agriculture. We’d asked everyone to watch what we were doing. Now we had to wait for the results. “Honestly,” I’d said to Sam before anyone arrived that morning, “this better work.”
That day, I knelt with a bunch of fifth graders as we carefully put seedlings into the ground, patting the dirt into place around the fragile stalks. After being in Europe and having my every outfit dissected in the press (I’d worn a cardigan sweater to meet the Queen, which was almost as scandalous as touching her had been), I was relieved to be kneeling in the dirt in a light jacket and a pair of casual pants. The kids asked me questions, some about vegetables and the tasks at hand, but also things like “Where’s the president?” and “How come he’s not helping?” It took only a little while, though, before most of them seemed to lose track of me, their focus centered instead on the fit of their garden gloves and the worms in the soil. I loved being with children. It was, and would be throughout the entirety of my time in the White House, a balm for my spirit, a way to momentarily escape my First Lady worries, my self-consciousness about constantly being judged. Kids made me feel like myself again. To them, I wasn’t a spectacle. I was just a nice, kinda-tall lady.
As the morning went on, we planted lettuce and spinach, fennel and broccoli. We put in carrots and collard greens and onions and shell peas. We planted berry bushes and a lot of herbs. What would come from it? I didn’t know, the same way I didn’t know what lay ahead for us in the White House, nor what lay ahead for the country or for any of these sweet children surrounding me. All we could do then was put our faith into the effort, trusting that with sun and rain and time, something half-decent would push up through the dirt.
21
One Saturday evening at the end of May, Barack took me out on a date. In the four months since becoming president, he’d been spending his days working on ways to fulfill the various promises made to voters during the campaign; now he was making good on a promise to me. We were going to New York, to have dinner and see a show.
For years in Chicago, our date nights had been a sacred part of every week, an indulgence we built into our lives and protected no matter what. I love talking to my husband across a small table in a low-lit room. I always have, and I expect I always will. Barack is a good listener, patient and thoughtful. I love how he tips his head back when he laughs. I love the lightness in his eyes, the kindness at his core. Having a drink and an unrushed meal together has always been our pathway back to the start, to that first hot summer when everything between us carried an electric charge.
I dressed up for our New York date, putting on a black cocktail dress and lipstick, styling my hair in an elegant updo. I felt a fluttering excitement at the prospect of a getaway, of time alone with my husband. In the last few months, we’d hosted dinners and gone to Kennedy Center performances together, but it was almost always in an official capacity and with lots of other people. This was to be a true night off.
Barack had dressed in a dark suit with no tie. We kissed the girls and my mom good-bye in the late afternoon and walked hand in hand across the South Lawn and climbed onto Marine One, the presidential helicopter, which took us to Andrews Air Force Base. We next boarded a small Air Force plane, flew to JFK Airport, and were then helicoptered into Manhattan. Our movements had been planned meticulously in advance by our scheduling teams and the Secret Service, meant as always to maximize efficiency and security.
Barack (with the help of Sam Kass) had chosen a restaurant near Washington Square Park that he knew I’d love for its emphasis on locally grown foods, a small, tucked-away