Michelle Obama--Our New First Lady

The fashion pages are abuzz with speculation about just what Michelle Obama will be wearing at the inauguration ceremony and the balls afterwards. No one knows. It's a deeply hidden secret. This tall, lanky, athletic woman who looks elegant in everything, well, except for the "uterus ablaze" black and red dress she wore Election Night in Grant Park designed by Narciso Rodriquez, our eyes are on her because she is now our First Lady.

On the campaign trail, she has worn J. Crew, Thakoon, Isabel Toledo and Maria Pinto. She even wore a little number from the mall store White House Black Market.

Vogue has a slideshow of designers' suggestions. It's fun to go through.

Does she wear a hat? What kind of coat? And the balls? What colors, how much of her dynamite shoulders should she show?

We are obsessed about what Michelle might wear because we are hungry for a First Lady who will once again reflect the intelligence of American women of the twenty-first century, our potential, and the potential of our daughters and granddaughters. We are hungry for a moral compass, not silence like we had in Laura Bush, who just sat there and smiled vacuously, allowing people to speculate that her views were more somehow "liberal" than her husband's.

We are hungry for a first family with the charm and spontaneity of young children and the demands that they make on busy parents. We are hungry to see ourselves in the First Family. And more. We want them to be glamorous, smarter than we are, better than we are. Because we want to believe that through hard work, collaboration, creativity, and leadership, yes, leadership, and sacrifice, we can get out this global rut.

I want Michelle Obama to look elegant, proud, competent, charming, beautiful, and the representative of American women: all colors, sizes, shapes, and ages. I won't be disappointed by her either. Because I recall the speech she gave in Wilmington, Delaware, early in the primary fight, when Barack Obama was still little known outside of Illinois and those who had seen his meteoric speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

In that speech, given in a high school gymnasium and broadcasted on C-Span, Michelle told the story of her life, how a girl from the South Side of Chicago got to Princeton, Harvard Law School, to Sidley Austin, the law firm where she supervised a cocky, brilliant young associate named Barack Hussein Obama, and eventually became counsel for the University of Chicago Medical Center. Her honesty and authenticity, it isn't an easy story, because it wasn't easy being a woman of color attending Princeton University, but she told the story without making it an easier story for us to hear. She caught my attention because she wasn't hesitant to speak about the opportunity given to her to attend Princeton and the incredible hard work it took to graduate with honors.

What I admire about both Barack Obama and Michelle is that they don't make anything easy. Unlike George Bush who sees the world in simplistic terms--good and evil--the Obamas understand the nuance of living in this complex world. We have much to learn from them about nuance, complexity, and patience. As we wait to see this elegant, intelligent, young new President and his First Lady, as he takes the oath of office and then as they enter the inaugural balls, perhaps take a moment to watch that wonderful will.i.am video, the one that came out just before Super Tuesday, Yes We Can.

Yes We Can if we work together.