In the middle of all the verbal fisticuffs and political mayhem, I keep returning to this picture. I found it some time ago and planned to use it for something snarky, but I just can’t. Look at them. A million years ago before the campaigns and the bad press and the blue dress and the winning. Back before they ate from the tree.

And it strikes me that all this history they carry on each other’s backs, all this accumulated striving and aching for more and less, all of it is in the seed of this picture. In this moment they have no Secret Service detail, no publicized broken hearts or policies. They aren’t yet parents or Presidents.

Everything we know of them is after this photograph. He never inhaled and she never exhales. There’s always a race they’re both running. I honestly can’t see either of them on CNN now without thinking of the innocence in this picture.