In my calendar I gathered 13 women in 12 months. My idea was to pay tribute to the remarkable women I know. I invited into it only and exclusively ladies who had made an impression on me.
An impression, especially with women, let's not kid ourselves, starts with looks. But it only starts there. Because of this, however, many of us, the representatives of the female half, devote all our energy mainly to maintaining our appearance.
The result is what Irvin Yalom calls “the beautiful empty woman”. Purely because of her well-kept appearance (“well-kept” and “beautiful” are very often two different things, but men don't get this and use the terms interchangeably), a woman is rewarded with so much approval and so many privileges that she neglects to develop her other qualities. The self-confidence and sense of success acquired this way are very fragile. As soon as her beauty starts to fade, she has nothing more to offer. She has neither developed herself as an interesting person, nor does she know how to take an interest in others.
That's why I settled on women who, although attractive, have, with few exceptions, moved past the age at which their attractiveness is their biggest trump card. And yet they keep on impressing. I chose women who have managed to build themselves into interesting and inspiring people.
I have learnt a lot from each of them, and each of them has traits I want to develop in myself.
I begin with January and Karolina
What I want to take from her is the strength to stand her ground, as well as her ability to set boundaries.
For me there are still 3 unsolved mysteries of the world.
I list them in ascending order of difficulty:
Mystery number 3: You know those Christmas family photo shoots, taken by a professional photographer, through which Mrs Koycheva (for example) has set out to convince the world that the Koychev family is the perfect family… Like this one here:
Well, it really torments me why said family absolutely has to be barefoot? Some perfect parents you are, eeeh – it's winter, the kid's going to catch a cold with those bare little feet.
Mystery number 2: Why do men at official ceremonies always strike this pose?
The only acceptable context for it is when someone's taking a free kick in football. Yes, there the Holy of Holies must be protected from a possible hit by the ball. But what are you guarding so jealously when, say, you're best man at a wedding?
Mystery number 1: What is Karolina Kalibatseva thinking while she looks at you like this, when you're trying to get her to like you, or to convince her of something she isn't very convinced of.
I prepared myself to pass through the gaze from point 3 as far back as last spring, when I got fired up about the idea of a calendar of MILF runners. I had a list of ladies I wanted to bring on board. I was ready for a long monologue on my part in front of her fixed, pale blue, unblinking gaze. I'd witnessed how she froze Sasho Nakov with it when he tried to entertain her with tales from the running community. The juicier the stories he served her about, for example, the cadence of the Sredna Gora Machine, the more impenetrable the mask her expression hardened into.
Karolina held a top spot on my list of Most Wanted models for my calendar. A runner (and a strong one at that), attractive, a mother, with a very interesting and creative business of her own… basically, top notch. The only thing was she wasn't over 40, but let's say I could swallow that. I was looking for women who combined such a variety of qualities that my choice wasn't very big, and I had to fill a whole 12 months.
To my pleasant surprise, Kari embraced the idea right at the concept stage, and quite enthusiastically too. She helped me with ideas, looks and concepts for the calendar. I was spared her impenetrable gaze, or at least for the time being she was turning to me with enthusiasm.
Since back then we were still more or less on “hi-hello” terms, I passionately wanted her to like me, so as not to lose her. A replacement of her calibre would have been hard to find. Besides all the qualities listed above, Karolina has built up her own studio for designer silver jewellery, and separately, she and her boyfriend make personalised Lego frames.
So one evening Kari was dropping by our place to leave me one of the pieces of jewellery I'd ordered. Emo and I decided to invite her up for a glass of wine. And at the same time to discuss a few ideas for the calendar, which at that point I hadn't yet started shooting.
She came up, completely unsuspecting of what a memorable visit awaited her.
When a blue-eyed, fair-haired lady with the body of a fitness model comes to visit Emo, he makes every effort to make sure that lady gets entertainment of the most unattainable class.
I've seen my husband straining to entertain ladies before.
Anyone who's watched “Friends” can't help but remember Ross, who would chat up attractive strangers with topics of conversation irresistible to the female sex, such as “Which would you prefer – death by drowning or burning at the stake?”
But even Ross pales next to the dazzling figure of Emo.
As soon as Karolina came up, we poured her a glass of wine to help her relax a little, and Emo led her into the following heart-to-heart:
“Are you familiar with the human trafficking channels that run through our country?”
We, the smiling host couple, waited for an answer to this strange question with politely interested expressions on our faces and our hands clasped on the table – showing that we are united in everything we do.
Karolina is still Karolina, though, and it's not easy to crack her impenetrable exterior. She nodded and took a sip of her wine.
“There are all kinds,” Emo insisted. “Some are just refugees, but…” he paused meaningfully and confided in her, “there are a lot of prostitutes too.”
Karolina didn't know that Emo had worked in intelligence for many years, precisely on refugee issues, and he was very keen to impress her with his professional knowledge and expertise.
After a few sentences back and forth, the two of them reached a consensus on the question of the refugees' route along the human trafficking line. They, together with the prostitutes, passed through Bulgaria and Serbia, but tried to go around Hungary, because Orbán didn't like either lot there.
“Now some of the girls don't know they're going to be doing that sort of work once they get to Germany and Holland, but some know full well and don't mind at all, mind you.” Emo had already put on a conspiratorial face and switched on his professional voice, which has a fuller timbre and is half an octave lower.
I stress again that at that point Kari and I were on “hi-hello” terms. A woman of weaker nerves would probably already have been pounding her fists on our front door, shouting “somebody get me out of here”, but not Karolina. She simply snorted into her wine and choked.
On the one hand, we finally saw that she was human too. Her flinch was slight but noticeable. Sasho Nakov hadn't managed to stir her, but Emo did it with 5 minutes of talk.
On the other hand….. an ugly suspicion shot through my mind. What if she decided that by talking her into modelling for a MILF calendar, we'd simply been testing the waters to see whether she was open-minded, and now we were moving on to the decisive step. Namely – trying to get her into the human trafficking business, and more precisely into that particular branch of it, which was so close to Emo's heart that he couldn't stop talking about it!!!
As a sign of disagreement with the family position thus formulated, I pulled my hand out of Emo's and decided to change the subject. Since I didn't know her that well yet, I tried to talk about running and races – a topic that was, after all, generally interesting and safe for everyone at the table.
My husband put an imperious end to my female pig-headedness:
“Oh, shut up with your running already, you can never get enough of it, can you! Can't you see the girl and I are discussing the really important topics, the topics of real life!”
“Oh come on, Emil, can't YOU see that Kari isn't interested in your spook talk!”
“No! You just can't let me be the star of the conversation! You can't stand anyone else being funnier than you and you want to crush it in the bud! Kari, tell Nia you find it interesting!!!”
“Kari! Please, tell Emo you don't want to talk about smugglers and prostitutes, don't be shy about telling him straight to his face!”
By now Kari had “pulled herself together” after her momentary weakness of choking on her wine, turned her blue headlights on us and, with the calm of a sphinx, concluded:
“You two don't have guests over very often, do you.”
…
After the baptism of fire by the Yotov family, with which we didn't manage to scare her off, it was time for the shoot itself.
The concept of my calendar went through several changes. In the end it crystallised into each of us being photographed in tune with a slogan. It was to represent her attitude to the world as a whole, or to something specific.
In fact, the calendar itself came about precisely because of one line of mine, which turned into my slogan.
I resort to it when Emo gets going on accusing me of being a bad housewife. Either I've burnt some pot, or I've mixed up his socks with our son's, and so on.
As soon as he starts droning on about housekeeping again, I parry with the line:
“I can't be both a clean freak and a dirty girl, Emil! Pick one.”
It was a completely spontaneous line of mine. But I liked it so much that I decided it had to be immortalised. What better way to make it immortal (well, for 1 year at least) than to put it on a calendar. That way Emo can look at it and revise it every day.
Accordingly, for the calendar, each of us had to come up with her own slogan.
For her photo, Karolina made herself a Lego bustier out of 410 pieces. She spent a whole two weeks putting it together. Her slogan was “The devil is in the detail”, and it matched her essence 100%.
Nothing could ever escape her.
Nor could anything dissuade her from doing something her own way, as long as she was convinced she was right.
Here's an example. The shoots for almost all the girls in my calendar took place at an equestrian centre, among bales of hay, horses and other elements of the rural idyll. Not for Karolina.
She flatly refused to pose against such a backdrop. She decided that what would suit her look was an underpass with graffiti in the background.
“Well then, go find yourself an underpass with graffiti,” I wished her in my head, along with a sarcastic “good luck”, since in my opinion “no such animal” existed in this city.
After all, while going to work, training, cooking, dealing with my teenagers and so on, I had also taken on organising a shoot day for the MILF girls.
On top of all that, I felt at the end of my tether and had no time to look for suitable underpasses for Kari.
Well, I didn't need to. The girl did her research, found herself an underpass with graffiti, photographed various walls, sent them to me for approval, and on that basis came up with the rest of the elements of her outfit, like her hairstyle and accessories.
Oh, and she also worked out exactly what lighting Kriso should prepare to compensate for the lack of natural light in the underpass. A vital detail I hadn't foreseen.
My shoot day was split into three. In the morning we photographed three girls at the lake in Pancharevo. At lunchtime, a separate session for Kari alone in the graffiti underpass at Central Station, and in the afternoon – the rest at the equestrian centre in Voynegovtsi.
Kari's session went more or less like this:
In the underpass at Central Station, Kriso was shooting, the make-up artist was in charge of lighting, Yuli was playing wardrobe assistant, and Kari was modelling in nothing but knickers and Lego. I, meanwhile, had been entrusted with the responsible task of not letting anyone into the underpass while we were shooting.
I stood guard at the nearest entrance to the underpass. Because it was right next to the bus station, it also turned out to deliver the heaviest flow of passengers. As bad luck would have it, the passengers from the just-arrived Novi Pazar–Kaspichan–Sofia line, having just landed in the capital, stormed it right through the entrance of the underpass whose figurative gates I was, so to speak, guarding.
I stopped the gentlemen from coming down the stairs with an authoritative wave of my hand and the explanation that we were doing a “photo shoot”. I shot off to our improvised set. I warned them that I could barely hold back half a busload of visitors to the capital from exercising their lawful right to use the city's infrastructure.
Karolina shot me one of her unflappable looks in the style of “do you want good photos or not”. Then she unflappably carried on modelling in search of the ideal angle, the ideal light and the ideal detail.
Wanting to please everyone, and precisely for that reason failing to please anyone, I rushed back to the crowd that had already gathered at the entrance to the underpass. I didn't know how I was going to stop them – I'd improvise.
I had underestimated the power of Chinese whispers. In the short time I'd been away, the rumour had spread among my little group that we were shooting a film. I was greeted with approving smiles, knowing faces and several offers in case I was looking for extras.
After their shoots, the participants in my calendar went home. Not Karolina. She told her boyfriend they were going on to the next location (where the shoot for the rest of the girls took place).
Yuli wasn't too keen on going and mumbled something along the lines of “If we really have to, we'll go.”
“Of course we have to! Can't you see,” she pointed at me with her chin, “that she's struggling to manage on her own!”
Karolina and Yuli got to the next location before me. There, she selflessly demoted herself from model to lighting technician and general stagehand (as you can see from the photo below).
These operational activities were only a cover for her true function at the shoot – she was, and is, the Queen-of-the-Process.
Creating, designing, promoting and selling a calendar is actually no simple job at all.
Throughout the whole process, I relied heavily on Karolina's help. She is capable of being firm and standing her ground on every single thing without losing her good manners and without being passive-aggressive.
I want to develop this quality of hers.
I also want something else. Kari made me this bracelet (in tune with my calendar slogan) for my birthday. I lost it during a training session in South Park, somewhere between km 4 of the 5kmRun and the Spring. If anyone has found it – please let me know.
Kari's silver jewellery: https://www.facebook.com/carissima.silver
Kari's Lego pictures: https://www.facebook.com/legominiface
