Natalia Chi
Michelle Obama said he struggled with an “overwhelming sense of despair” following the 2020 presidential election caused by the death and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, a summer of political and racial unrest, and the US Capitol uprising .
“I was in a low place,” he said. Then she got an idea.
“Everyone was looking for some answers on how to cope. And for some reason they asked me: ‘What are you doing?’ I had to start thinking about it ”, the former first lady he told People magazine in an interview anchored on Tuesday’s release of his second book, “The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times”. It is ready to open a book tour of six cities in Washington that day.
In the book, the wife of former President Barack Obama, who is one of the most famous women in the world, tells how she holds steady in these anxious times and how she works to overcome her fear of change and self-doubt.
“In the 58 years that I have lived, I can look back and I can say, ‘This is how I deal with fear. These are the things I tell myself when I need to get up. This is how I remain visible in a world that doesn’t necessarily see a tall black woman, ‘”she said. “This is how I remain armored when I am attacked. The book is that offer.
“I think people learn not through edicts, but through stories,” he said. People posted a report on the interview on her website Thursday and it will appear in the magazine’s November 21 issue, available nationwide on Friday.
Ms. Obama, the mother of Sasha and Malia Obama, opens up in the book about everything from how embarrassing it is to make new friends to her experiences with racism, marriage, parenting and even menopause.
She also writes of leaning on a “kitchen table” of close friends, led by her 85-year-old mother, Marian Robinson. The group includes Kathleen Buhlea hiking and yoga friend, former wife of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and mother of Maisy Biden, Sasha Obama’s best friend.
In 2018, Ms. Obama was released his best-selling memoir, “Becoming”, and has embarked on a book tour in the United States and abroad to promote it. The book has sold more than 17 million copies worldwide, surpassing the sales of any memorial to a previous first lady or modern president, including his husband.
In her new book, the former first lady describes looking in the mirror and seeing only her flaws, and how she practices being kind to herself.
She said she also gets by indulging in what her husband calls “lowbrow TV”.
“You name it, I watch it,” he said, naming HGTV, anything on the Food Channel and dating programs like “Married at First Sight” among his viewing choices.
The former first lady described herself as an informed citizen who reads the newspaper, receives information, sits with her husband every night and knows what’s going on in the world.
But she said “when I’m alone, I need to be able to turn off my head and think about the wallpaper.”
