The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama. 4.25 stars. Memoir/Self-help, 319 pages, 2022

Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles–the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.” She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,” “going high,” and assembling a “kitchen table” of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness. (from Goodreads)

Michelle’s memoir Becoming is one of my favorites. If you haven’t read it, you should. This book shares new stories, offers advice, and addresses the ‘go high’ vision and what it means. 

It didn’t pack the same emotional punch of her first book, but there were parts I really loved. I loved the section on her relationship with Barack, especially that first trip to Hawaii to meet his family. I love her honesty and the way that she never puts him on a pedestal. Through her we see the real him. I love this quote, “Any long-term partnership really is an act of stubborn faith.” This spoke to me because I often speak of my own marriage this way.

The last few sections about how she was portrayed in right wing press and her now famous call to ‘Go High” were my favorites. We are so lucky to have had her as First Lady and to have her now encouraging us all to do the work. As many like to say, freedom isn’t free, and if we want a better country we have to be better citizens. I’m going to leave you with a few of the quotes I write in my journal. 

“If you keep your children from feeling fear, you’re essentially keeping them from feeling competence.”

“We’re alone, each of us. That’s the ache of being human.”

“Any time we grip hands with another soul and recognize some piece of the story they’re trying to tell, we are acknowledging and affirming two truths at once: We’re lonely and yet we’re not alone.”

“Going high is not just about what happens on a single day, or a month, or inside one election cycle either. It happens over the course of a lifetime, the course of a generation, Going high is demonstrative, a commitment to showing your children, your friends, your colleagues, and your community what it takes to live with love and decency. Because in the end, at least in my experience, what you put out for others- whether it’s hope or hatred- will only create more of the same.”