I love Oprah. I grew up with her. My husband found me weeping on many an occasion from watching her show and I read more than a few of the books she picked out for her book club. I had always dreamed of one day going to Chicago and seeing a taping. When her show ended, I figured that dream had died with it – until I heard she was coming to Ottawa!
I convinced my good friend Sara to get tickets with me and even surprised her with an early birthday present by upgrading them from the 300 to the 200 level. While I flip flopped between being excited to see her live and thinking, “wow! that’s a lot of money for a ticket”, ultimately, the excitement won over. She has shared so much of herself that I feel I know her and that’s exactly how she made the 15000+ people in Scotiabank feel last night. She speaks from such an authentic place and has that rare gift of making all of us feel like we matter.
One of her biggest fans, Samantha Moonsammy of Starfish Events and Lisa Larter decided to organize an event to celebrate Oprah’s talk in Ottawa and the message she brings. In two short months, they put together Live Your Best Day and I was asked to cover the event. And what a day it was! They invited some incredible speakers that shared their own stories, struggles and triumphs to inspire us all. While I will post more from the event, I wanted to share the few shots I got of Oprah up close in the Brookstreet Hotel lobby. Originally, I was supposed to go home between the event at the hotel and the performance at Scotiabank Place but my wonderful husband offered to work from home so I wouldn’t have to cross the city twice at rush hour. While killing time in the lobby, I noticed a few rather excited women and finally clued in they were Oprah fans waiting for a glimpse of her. I hadn’t even thought of that. I had already locked all my gear up in my car and just had my iPad on me. While excitement built, I got my iPad ready to take a little video and waited and waited. I then started wishing I had my big camera but wondered if she’d come by while I went to the car. So I waited and waited some more. Finally, I decided to go for it and ran to get my camera case and made it back with several minutes to spare. I’m so glad I did. While I don’t aspire to ever be a paparazzo, it was fun to feed off the excitement of the crowd and cross ‘seeing Oprah’ off my bucket list. What a great day!
