The Gallery; Tomorrow

It's Week 54 of The Gallery (click here to see the other entries) and Tara's theme this time is 'Tomorrow'. Bless her - she does like to make life interesting, doesn't she? (Mutter mutter).

Initially I had a beautiful photograph of one of my sons all lined up. It was meant to represent all his tomorrows, and seemed to do the job quite well. I took it with a fancy camera and everything... Instead, though, I'm going to show you a snap I took with my mobile yesterday, when I took the Boys to the Darwin Museum here in Moscow. Unbelievably this museum was the first of it's kind - you have to love the Russians' lack of truck with creationism (the small 'c' was intentional, by the way; I'm not going to give it the compliment of using a capital letter) - and was established back in 1907.

Like most museums here each room is staffed by one or more scary-looking older ladies, who at first glance seem totally bored and not at all engaged by where they are. Often their sole role seems to be suck the fun out of the experience for small children, telling them to 'be quiet and for heaven's sake, stop showing so much damn enthusiasm!' The lady in the photograph below was, as you'll see, reading a magazine before Boy #2 and his friend rocked up. But after I took the photograph and looked at it properly, I reassessed.

Here she is, a lady probably in late 50's or early 60's (you might think she looks older but life can be hard here in Russia, especially for those who grew up during Soviet times, and it shows), still working. She's in an enriching and cultural environment. The chances are she's passionate about her subject and is a font of knowledge on all things Darwin and his Theory of Evolution related (if you ever engage these ladies in conversation they will usually astonish you with their depth of knowledge of the subject on display). She is looking warmly at two small boys in a way that makes me think she is probably a grandmother and enjoys her grandchildren's company. And - possibly quite importantly, for her anyway - her job allows her to sit down, read magazines, and perhaps even eat chocolate...

I don't necessarily imagine - or want - my Tomorrow to be like her Present. But if it includes some of the details I mentioned in the paragraph above, I don't think I'll be doing too badly.