Maya Angelou and sweaty palms in HOTlanta!

---

Day two in Atlanta, and I feel as though I need a truckload of coffee to be nearly as perky as all of these other marketers. Whew! Seriously people.

The day started out early, but since I was so tired and dragging a little, I managed to be running a bit late. And getting turned around trying to walk to the conference hotel didn't help! With some assistance at my own hotel, I was able to find it and make it to the opening ceremonies with no trouble. Cheesy music started the melodramatics, but the morning was actually really a good one.

We started with a little video that detailed some of the problems that legal marketers have, and it was pretty hilarious. I won't bore you with the details, since it's only funny to people in the industry - but it reminds me of a Karen Walker quote from last night's Will & Grace - "It's funny because it's sad." Anyway, our two co-chairs were followed by Dr. Maya Angelou. I know everyone had high hopes for her because she's so renowned, but to be honest, I wasn't holding out much hope. I think it's because she cancelled a speech at Hamilton that time, and honestly, I've never read anything she's written. But she was truly wonderful, I must admit, and she won me over. This woman, who has been through so much tragedy and triumph, was so dignified, so classy, and so impressive. She told us that we are all "composers" and said that everything we do and write and say affects other people - sometimes, people we will never even meet. She told the story of how her parents divorced when she was three and her brother was five - and that although divorce can be tragic, some people (such as her parents) are doing the world a favor by being divorced! She and her brother were shipped off alone on a train to Alabama, and miraculously arrived there, to live with her grandmother (her father's mother), and her Uncle Willy. She said that Willy was crippled on his right side, and for a long time, her grandmother believed it was due to a fall he had taken on the porch at 18 months old. It turned out that it was because of a neurological disease, and this left Willy wizened and atrophied on his right side. But his left side was big and strong, and his mind sharp. She said how she thought her grandmother taught her and her brother to read on the first afternoon they were there, and that Uncle Willy taught them their times tables. He would do this by taking his left hand and grabbing them by the back of the neck and standing them in front of the potbelly stove, saying "now, recite your foursies" or "recite your sevensies." Dr. Angelou said that despite his disability, she really believed that he would somehow be able to open the door to the stove and shove her in if she didn't learn her times tables! But Willy truly was the kindest man, she said, because he would even make them carry moths and spiders outside of the store instead of killing them!

Years later, when Willy passed away, Dr. Angelou went to Alabama for the funeral, and stopped first to see a friend. This friend said she wanted to introduce someone to her, and Dr. Angelou said, "okay" and her friend brought thirty people to the hotel! But one of the people was a distinguished black man, who came up to her and told her that the world had truly lost a great man when Willy died. She couldn't believe this man even knew who Willy was, because he was so ashamed of his deformity that he wouldn't leave the tiny town they lived in. He said that as a child, he was getting into trouble, and Willy gave him a job at the store for ten cents a week. He taught him his times tables, and how to love to learn, and the man credited him with making him what he was today...and that was mayor of a major city in Alabama. He recommended that she speak to a "good ole boy" lawyer that he knew so that the property would be taken care of. Dr. Angelou was expecting an older, distinguished black man, with a pocket watch to greet her, and instead, when she arrived, a young man in his thirties came running out of the office, and said he was "sure glad" to meet her! He said that because of Willy's influence on the mayor she had just met, the man had been kind to this lawyer at a young age - he had been born to a deaf mother, and the mayor showed them how important getting an education would be. And this lawyer credited everything he had become to this man - he was a composer, she said. This lawyer also served on the legislature.

More recently, when speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington, DC, a young man ran up to Dr. Angelou, clutching the arms of his wife and two children. He told her that he always wanted to meet her, because she had meant so much to him. He said that his grandfather always spoke so highly of her, and it turned out that his grandfather was the lawyer she had met so many years previous. This young man was a US senator. It gave me goosebumps to see how one man, just doing the next right thing, could impact so many people - even people he would never meet. And he was never famous. Such a powerful message.

Dr. Angelou said these things, and so many more. She encouraged us to recognize the power within ourselves to effect change in the world, even in our own small ways. It was a great way to start the morning.

She finished with a poem she asked all of us to share on any websites we have, so I've reprinted it here. It's called A Brave and Startling Truth:

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

It was a great experience.

After having a short networking meeting, I was off to a session on becoming a better leader - highly informative and useful. Then, I was off to conquer two fears - networking, and heights. I met up with one of our firm's marketing people and their PR representative and another consultant for lunch at the Sun Dial Restaurant, which, coincidentally is at the very top of my extremely tall hotel. The elevators were positioned to take advantage of the view, and so are on the outside of the building, encased in glass. My palms were sweating as we rode the 72 floors to the top, and I had a little trouble. Luckily, my dining partners were all incredibly nice and scooted me out of the elevator first - and made sure I didn't have to sit near a window. The restaurant itself is circular and rotates while you are eating - which is cool, once you sit down. One of the people I was eating with is from Germany, and put it really succinctly - she said, "Lindsay, this gives me a bit of a squeezy feeling too, so don't feel bad!" That's a great way to put it.

It was neat though, because columns in the restaurant were designated by the direction that they faced, and noted what sights were in that view. So as we rode by during our meal, we had a number of views. I had a delicious meal of sweet potato tortelloni, which had dried sweet potato shavings as a garnish - very good. And the conversation flowed as easily as the turn of the restaurant itself, so it was a quite enjoyable meal.

After a short walk back to the conference hotel, it was on to session two following a short talk with another of our marketing directors. This session was less inspiring, but very informative, so I will once again go back to the office feeling inundated with ideas, and having no idea where to start and what to fix - but at least I'll be inspired!

Tonight, it's off to the lovely Georgia Aquarium for a dinner catered by Wolf Gang Puck's associates - should be good, I hope, as long as it's not fish - would that be tacky? Fish at an aquarium? I'm all for pasta, but no one ever seems to think that's a good idea at these things!

---

Photos

Dr. Maya Angelou!
I know it's dark and fuzzy, but I didn't want to be rude and use a flash - though everyone else was!

And only one pic of the view
Here's one of the views from the Sun Dial Restaurant - I would have gotten more, but I was supposed to be networking!