A Mountain on Maui

According to an article in Parade magazine last week, when Oprah Winfrey was asked why the film Lee Daniels' The Butler brought her back to acting she responded, "Lee was relentless.  I remember being on my mountain in Maui where I go to restore myself.  And he called..." (http://www.parade.com/58556/katherineheintzelman/oprah-winfrey-forest-whitaker-talk-lee-daniels-the-butler-racism-and-the-n-word/comment-page-1/#comments)

 

Seriously, Oprah?  Your mountain in Maui?  And how is this apropos of why you accepted this role in the film? 

You know, this is why I think that Oprah has lost touch with the common folk.  I'm guessing that most of us don't have a mountain in Maui for rest and relaxation. I can't speak for everyone but to me it just feels like bragging.  Oprah really wants us to know about her mountain in Maui.

I shared this information with my Friends, some of whom decided to share where they go to restore themselves.

Tom likes to restore himself on his back patio with a cup of hazelnut coffee.

Janette likes to go to coffee shops or little diners to be an anonymous person with her journal or sketchbook and hide in plain sight with a cup of coffee or a good breakfast.  Just to clarify, I asked her if any of said coffee shops or little diners were in Maui, but she confessed that they were mostly here in Pittsburgh or in Michigan, where she was born and raised and where many of her family members still live. I thought Michigan and Maui were similar because they start with the letter "M" and are both out of state. Janette assured me that even if they were that she owned neither a mountain nor a coffee shop, for that matter.

Mary always said that she went to her old claw-foot tub to restore herself. I reminded her that she and I often went to the Highpointe restaurant, which was near California University of Pennsylvania where we met as students, where we restored ourselves after class with crab legs, which were not listed on the menu (you just had to know they had them).  I thought that the Highpointe and a mountain were almost the same thing because they were both, you know, high.

Then Debbie said that she used to restore herself at the Village Dairy, a sandwich shop and favorite dining spot in our hometown of Swissvale.  Just the mention of the Village Dairy filled me with that kind of fond nostalgia that is restorative.  Nancy, another Swissvale classmate, also remembers the Village Dairy, but now goes to her back porch or patio to restore herself.

As for me, the place I go to restore myself is to my side of the love seat in my living room with a cup of Zen tea and Mr. Rip by my side.  It's not on a mountain and it's not in Maui, but it is our only home.  Thank goodness, because flying to Maui is probably so stressful and expensive that if I didn't need to be restored when I left, I surely would need to when I got there.