The last light of the day touches the first lady, highlighting her cheekbones as she balances on an elbow, watching him doze. "You like it, don't you?" She grins her now famous grin, broad and welcoming.
"Hmmm?" The president pretends he hadn't heard. He stretches, she settles her head on his chest.
"Being President of The United States. You like it."
Obama's turn to smile. "Well, yeah." He kisses the top of her head. It's like we talked about. It's a destiny thing. "Always just been there. Bigger than you and me and the girls. In '04 I knew it was time, but I always just had that urge..."
Hope nobody minds a little historical fiction while the history is still new (in our terms of time). I see these scenes in my mind, and sometimes I have to get them down on the screen.
Seems from day-one, he would have to have had that stunning drive, what with a perfect storm of a mom. She herself clearly a brilliant woman. I say perfect storm because seems all great men and women have certain events, or relationships that guide their already natural born ache to do something. Then when all seems ripe, and they are ready to take center stage, the greater events, such as today with our wildly crazy economic world-tour.
Seems he'd be thinking of the danger, the radicals, the racists, how his ambition drove his family along with him to that big White House. He might wonder if We The People can see that he genuinely wants to do right by us...all of us. "I'll be your president, too!"
I think he does like it. This isn't an Obama love-fest diary. I have enjoyed reading the diaries (and looking at the pictures) that speak well of President Obama, even if some take issue with that certain breathless adulation (hell, since I'm digressing...) but I think of it like this: How long has it been since we have seen somebody like Barack Obama? Actually we have not seen anyone like him...so how about somebody close? Somebody that means what he says? Somebody that cares about people. A president unafraid to read a silly story and act out the parts in his exuberant way on a bright Easter Sunday...Okay, enough. We're simply not used to it. Are we?
Not that it's one big yuck-fest (try that one as a spoonerism, see what you get). Particularly now. But he flourishes, because this is his destiny, and he knows it. Always has. Seems self-evident to me. There's a reason Barack Hussein Obama had this particular mother, this particular father...and step-father, and sister, and grandma (both grandmas). There's a reason he married a brilliant, caring woman. There's a reason she has the type of personality to keep him centered, grounded. It is what made him startle that young Marine at the presidential chopper, by offering to shake his hand; what seems to cause kids to want to flock around him; it is what allows him to be likeable to heads of state.
I know greatness when I see it. Don't you?
"Renegade's reading to the kids."
"Renaissance?"
"Watching him dance around. Smiling."
"Radiance?"
"Same. Smiles...it's a smiley White House."
"Rosebud?"
"Whispering something to Renaissance."
Yes, the Secret Service digs the first family, too. They just can't admit it...openly.