Wednesday, January 20, belonged to my final POTUS speech. This was for the trip to Detroit, the one that began with a two-thousand-calorie lunch, was punctuated by a snowstorm, and ended with the motorcade snarled in traffic. On Thursday, still shaken after the previous night’s slip-slide through the District of Columbia, I began to pack.
It is fair to say I was not known for office tidiness. It is fairer to say that my work space was a dreadful, undeniable mess. Cleaning out my desk was akin to an archeological dig. Also, there was less time for tidying up than I had anticipated. After the relatively light dusting on Wednesday evening, one of the biggest blizzards in D.C. history was forecast to arrive on Friday afternoon. I crammed years’ worth of detritus into boxes as quickly as I could.
Without meaning to, I was creating an extremely mundane time capsule. Several pounds of gym clothes, along with one open tin of shoe polish and seven mismatched socks. My Nerf gun, a secret-Santa gift from Cody, which I shot into the air like a warlord during fits of writer’s block. Add to this the impressive collection of plastic utensils I’d pilfered from the cafeteria, and three dozen thick history books I meant to read but never did. I dragged the heavy cardboard boxes to the car, more grateful than ever for my parking pass. Even so, I was at it well into the night.
On Friday, my last day at the White House, the federal government was closed in anticipation of the coming blizzard. Employees were instructed to telecommute. But cleaning an office can’t be done remotely. My only option was to return. This time I left the car at home but brought a suitcase, a wheeled one, big enough to carry several years’ worth of junk. Office supplies. Mini bottles of rum and whisky. A single, lonely shoe. Mindful of the storm fast approaching, I stuffed everything in without regard to sentiment or preservation. Half a two-pack of ibuprofen. Boxes upon boxes of presidential M&M’s.
It was only when I reached a worn, tarnished picture frame that I paused.
Inside was a note addressed to my great-grandfather. In 1934, he wrote a letter to the White House, wishing FDR a happy birthday. He never received a presidential reply. But he did get a thank-you from Louis Howe, one of Roosevelt’s top aides, along with an assurance that his message had reached the president’s desk. I never met my great-grandfather. Other than his name, Maurice, I know almost nothing about him. But I know how much that note on White House stationery meant to him: he framed it and kept it until he died.
What would he make of all this? I wondered. Imagine if he could see me, just three generations later, sitting a few hundred yards from the Oval, my own stack of White House stationery in my desk. In human history, what a vanishingly rare story. In America, how typical.
My next thought was less poetic. Holy shit. It’s fucking snowing.
As forecast, a full-blown blizzard had arrived. The flakes were coming down thick. An uncomfortable thought struck me: if the snow accumulated more than a few inches, the wheels on my suitcase would be useless. I would be stranded on the sidewalk. I had to leave. Now.
Thus began my final, not-so-dignified stroll through the corridors of power. I grabbed the last few items from my office and laced my snow boots in a panic. Already sweating in my down jacket, I sprinted through the wide, empty hall.
The moment I stepped outside, however, I stopped to look around. I couldn’t help it. In the falling snow, the White House campus and the outside world had reversed roles. Out there life was messy and chaotic. In here, everything was untouched, pristine, calm. I walked until I reached the north end of West Executive Avenue. I passed a security checkpoint and heard the familiar click of the lock sliding open in the gate.
One year later, when many of my colleagues left the White House for the last time, they wouldn’t have the luxury of feeling wistful. So much of what defined Obama—so much of what defined America—would be under assault like never before. But I was lucky. Standing along the fence between the building and Pennsylvania Avenue, I could think back to what POTUS had said about Jeff Copeland near the conclusion of his speech.
“We are not perfect, but we have the capacity to be more perfect. Mile after mile; step after step.”
As a small avalanche fell from my hat onto my jacket, I thought of all the miles that had piled up over the past eight years. I had knocked on doors and driven naked. I had organized a county and scrubbed Janice Maier’s table till it gleamed. I sang the Golden Girls theme song in the Oval. I watched a tiny man surf Jesse Jackson’s coat. In a convention hall in Charlotte, I met a mom from Arizona who would never stop fighting for her little girl. I was disillusioned more times than I thought possible. I was reinspired more times than I could count. I navigated Healthcare.gov for a woman, the highest test of love. I helped break the Internet. I wrote one perfect speech. I found a salmon in the toilet and was caught half naked on Air Force One and told the president he looked like Hitler to his face.
I was, I felt, more perfect than when I started. As one chapter ends and another begins, what more can you ask for than that?
With my right hand I clutched my suitcase. With my left I gripped the iron bar. Blinking snow from my eyelashes, I took one last look at the building before pushing into the storm. And then, smiling despite everything, I walked out the gate, to America.
Epilogue
SQUISHING THE SCORPION
“So,” she asks, “how’s that whole hopey, changey thing workin’ out for ya?”
It’s January 28, 2017, and imaginary Sarah Palin is whispering in my ear. She’s been doing this nonstop since Donald Trump became president eight days ago. I’ll be going for a run, cooking tilapia with Jacqui, picking up a six-pack of paper towels from CVS. No matter what I’m doing, her folksy insult lingers, a kind of malevolent background hum.
Right now what I’m doing—what I’ve flown halfway across the country to do—is watch a six-year-old practice karate. She’s tiny, even for a first grader. Along with her white uniform, she wears bright purple glasses. A bright purple hair tie holds her ponytail in place. We’re in the kind of pint-size martial arts studio that caters to children: a few punching bags, some motivational posters, a long table piled high with Capri Sun. At the center of the mat stands the instructor, a young blond woman who goes by Miss B.
“Pretend I’m coming toward you,” Miss B says. She leans down, protecting herself with a thick black practice pad. “Ready?”
The student’s size masks surprising fury. “HICE!” she yells. (I guess this is how kids these days say “Hai-ya!”) A golf-ball-size knee launches upward, hitting Miss B’s practice pad with a satisfying thwack.
“HICE!” Thwack.
“HICE!” Thwack.