There are few books I’ve read that have made me feel like my experience as a working woman and a mother in general, and a Black professional woman and mom in particular, is universal. Seldom have I felt more at home than in the pages of Michelle Obama’s latest book “The Light We Carry”. Rarely have I felt more seen, more touched, less invisible than inside her no-nonsense words, her lived experience, the shelter of her unique yet so universal testimony…
As a Black woman born and raised in Senegal, West Africa, an immigrant on US soil, someone at the margins of different worlds, cultures, even languages, I could so relate to her voice also suspended between worlds. Worlds transcending generations of past slaves, into a middle-class home on Euclid Avenue in Chicago, to the heights of Ivy league schools and prestigious law firms, into the noble service of the highest office of the land at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Worlds that may seem foreign to a little African girl like myself, an immigrant, yet that rang a familiar bell through every single word, every heavy phrase of a loaded yet interestingly familiar read. The reason this book felt so familiar to me, is because it speaks of the universal familiar experience of being a human being, a woman, a mother at the fringes of worlds colliding and coming together in an unending dance of life and experience…
How I could relate to the strong sense of achievement brewing inside the young woman on Euclid Avenue, as she felt in her a call for the things, places and universes many did not think she belonged in. How I could understand the determination to transcend barriers in her way, coupled with the desire to do it in an authentic, real manner that also made room for the things that truly matter, like family, love, health. And how I could sense the deep longing for normalcy in the midst of the uncommon, the cultivation of the ordinary in the middle of the extraordinary, the duality between the highs and lows of those of us who dare to do the work of our lives…
More than anything, what I could relate to was the feeling of constantly navigating different worlds as a Black woman at work and in life. This constant need to adjust, recalibrate, prepare and do the work. It’s a feeling so many Black women experience in the corporate and professional world day in and day out, one they learn to carry with them as fuel rather than deterrent to their own lights. One they fight to not let steal their authenticity, their heart, hope and soul, as they stand on the shoulders of the women and men who came before. Those same shoulders that made it possible for us to wear our natural hair at work, to create our own businesses, to be more vulnerable, more raw, more human…I could hear and feel through her words the ache of others’ perceptions when someone who wasn’t supposed to make it does in fact break through the doors of success, when the cost of destiny is leaving your home and family to pursue new dreams, when all you have is your faith, hope and fight to turn the rejection, frustration and anger into the healing power to keep moving forward.
As a mother reading her, I could so relate to the urge to protect our children, counterbalanced by the need to allow them to fly on their own. One of the parts that most edified me in the book, is the part when she was describing her mother. Learning about her own mother teaching both she and her brother to be more independent, taught me about the more challenging yet more impactful side of mothering. The side that requires us to prepare rather than hinder our children from the world. The part that describes our job not just as a rosy cloud of love and kisses, but as a tough armoring of the souls entrusted to us. The side that requires us to buy our kids an alarm clock rather than having them depend on us to get out of bed in the morning. By the way, I did buy my son an alarm clock, finally…
As a wife and partner reading her, I could so relate to her account of the reality of marriage. Not a reality mired in roses and visions of eternal romance, but one of practical love, love that stands the test of time, love that takes into account the differences in people, backgrounds and destinies. The no-nonsense love of our forefathers and mothers, who shared a common purpose, a common goal, those who weathered storms and somehow came out on the other side…What it also made me realize is the imbalance of marriage, the uneven nature of partnership at its core, and how to navigate the reality of it with a long-term view in mind while still keeping our end of the bargain somewhat intact.
Reading Michelle Obama’s words, I could feel a growing sense of hope that the work is not, after all in vain. The work of motherhood, the work of marriage, the work of Purpose, and ultimately, the work of being human. While I could identify more closely to her experience as a Black woman, wife, mother, sister, friend, it was really the universality of her story that she refers to, that is left in me. A universality that says, as she herself explains it so well, that at the end of the day, we have more in common than we have differences. That as women and mothers, the threads of our existences and experiences are so intertwined, so similar despite all the apparent complexities of our individual stories, that we can’t help but hear each other even in the midst of the noise of our current times. Most importantly, we can’t help but see each other, see the light we carry, the light we give, the light we receive…
Thank you Michelle Obama!
Buy the book here:
With gratitude,
The Corporate Sis.
