Ana

I am always intrigued by people I meet. Friday morning, sitting in the Executive lounge at the Hilton, the attendant for the morning breakfast was a young woman named Ana.

Personable, Ana brought a different light to a place that is normally reserved for grim, quiet people who seem to regret working in a similar space. We spoke about the weather, the lack of water for guests with breakfast, how slow it was -- I was the only person sitting in the lounge at 8 am in the morning. She was young (probably only mid 20's) and yet seemed to work in different parts of the hotel 60+ hours a week.

I told her I take photographs as therapy and write a blog based on those photos and asked if I could take hers. She was hesitant, but then we started talking about art. She draws (mainly realism), but her painting, she said. was always abstract. "I can't control the paint or myself when I'm painting," she said. As I took her picture, she seemed a little more comfortable but probably very reflective of how she is: not at all wanting to be the center of attention.

As it was getting to be time to go to my meeting, I asked where she was from. Tentatively she said, "Bosnia." I told her I thought either the former Yugoslavia or Romania so I got it right. Surprised, she said most people thought she was from Russia. But in that moment, I didn't ask the stories she had about where she had grown up, what it had been like, how long she had been in America. Something told me that she was tired of those memories, and so she talked about how hot it had been and that she was headed to some springs on Saturday to relax.

And she told me that the view from the lounge north was very nice in the evenings, as she walked down the hall and I got on the elevator.

The picture was another classic brain error -- I had taken some longer exposure pictures the night before from my window and didn't check it before I pressed the button. So I figured it was a loss. It actually came out better than I could have imagined. Intentionality indeed...