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122 JULY 2018 VOGUE.COMA PLACE IN THE SUNCONTINUED FROM PAGE 50sent a friend: The wrong-size sheetsbarely covered some beds and dangledto the loor over others. Dust bunniesskittered eerily across the marble loors.We strove to see it as an adven-ture—like camping!—heating wateron the gas stove to bathe and diningon baguette and cheese by candlelight.But, in fact, much time in the subse-quent days was spent trying to locateplumbers and electricians (trickier thanyou’d imagine, with no local phone orphone book, and no wi-i) and await-ing their visits. Not only did the waterrun cold, it trickled lamely from thetap: The pressure, never good, was re-duced almost to nil. Upstairs in mygrandfather’s study, one of the largewindowpanes had cracked. In the ter-race planters, the skeletal remains ofshrubbery clattered in the wind. Dustbillowed up from the bookshelves ifyou moved a single book.In spite of the beautiful burning sun-light, the air redolent of lavender androsemary, the delicious sticky salt wa-ter drying on our skins; in spite of thenightly winking lights of the ferry toCorsica crossing from the harbor to theinky horizon; in spite of the softness ofthe ancient worn sheets on which mygrandmother had embroidered her ini-tials as part of her trousseau—in spiteof it all, we knew, on that last visit, thatit was time to go. Without a fortune, wecouldn’t ix time’s damage (the electri-cian, in his 30s, had never seen a fusebox as old); we couldn’t even slow itdown. Just like a person, the apartmentneeded to be loved, to be inhabited, tobe illed with routines and with life—just as my grandparents, my aunt, andOdet had done for so many years. Ididn’t need to memorize the pathwaysor the vistas; I knew them as well as Iknow my own fingernails. For all ofus, saying goodbye weighed upon us, agreat sadness; but it felt inevitable, evennecessary, like burying an aged relativeafter a long illness.I returned just once, the followingJanuary, with my sister, to sign the pa-pers. Our neighbor opposite on thelanding bought the lat for her daugh-ter’s family. It was winter, and wewalked hurriedly through the emptiedapartment on the eve of the sale, paus-ing to sweep debris left by the movers``````and to fill a garbage bag with a pileof our grandfather’s precious papers,somehow overlooked. Bare of its fa-miliar objects and clutter, illuminatedonly by the wan overhead lights, theapartment looked forlorn. The met-al blinds on the floor-to-ceiling win-dows, fully lowered against the blusterynight, rattled slightly. My sister and Iclimbed to the roof terrace and stoodleaning against the rail, looking outone last time upon the most gloriousview I know: the vast, incessant sea, theenormous canopy of sky, mutable andimmutable, eternity itself. ``````GLORIOUS GISELECONTINUED FROM PAGE 72their comfort zone. That’s the fun part,to give people solutions. It seems likea huge thing, but all you have to do isshow people how.”At home, meanwhile, Gisele is fo-cused on teaching her children—Ben,age eight, and Vivian, age five—togarden, to show them the pleasure ofa thing in its proper season, to instilla patience that digital culture under-mines at every turn. They compost.They keep bees. She has her husband,Tom, well trained too. He now uses alemon tincture to lavor his water, lestthe trash ill up with plastic bottles, andthe kids police their dad when he fallsshort. “They’re the little defenders,”Gisele says. “When you have privilege,you have to work extra hard. You wantto give to your children because youlove them, but is that really what’s bestfor them? Growing the garden withmy kids, they understand they have tonourish it from tiny seeds. Ooh, herecomes a frost. We lose our plant. Andnow what? Start again, igure out a newway. Nature is the biggest teacher: She’salways teaching you how to adapt.”Gisele is a reluctant user of socialmedia; her younger sister created anInstagram account for her and likesto remind her that she owes her fansa selie now and then. “If it was me, itwould only be pictures of sunsets,” shesays. “It’s not my generation—I have tobe honest about that. I’m older, wiser.If I had to promote myself in the waygirls modeling now have to do, forgetit. I wouldn’t do it.” In fact, Gisele hasa few pearls of wisdom she’d like tostring together for her young admirers.Her irst book, Lessons: My Path to a``````Meaningful Life, comes out in October.Though it isn’t a memoir, it recountswhat she calls “that process of digginginward” in order to understand her-self better and home in on a purposefor her life. The photographer StevenMeisel, whom she credits with teachingher how to model, wrote the foreword.The Bündchen-Bradys divide theirtime among homes in Brookline, NewYork City (where ten-year-old Jack,Tom’s son from a previous relation-ship, whom Gisele calls “my bonuschild,” lives with his mother), Mon-tana, and Costa Rica. It’s in this lastplace that she is able to lead the life wemight most like to imagine: barefoot,bikini-clad. Though she loves Brazil,Gisele is simply too recognizable to hitthe beach there, and so she has madeCosta Rica into a family retreat: EveryJuly, her parents and sisters come tocelebrate her birthday and slide intoa routine of suring, horseback rides,and yoga. In Massachusetts, whereTom Brady is surely the state’s most fa-mous citizen, the couple leads a iercelyprivate life. Gisele does not mix withthe other football wives. “My husbandis 40, and most of the guys playingwith him are 20. Their girlfriends areprobably nineteen, with diferent in-terests,” she says, laughing. “I go tothe games with the kids every Sundayso that Tom feels we’re here for him,and that’s the extent of what I knowabout football.” She is close to sev-eral mothers at her children’s school,where she has also been involved inimplementing a meditation program.(Gisele has meditated nearly every daysince she was in her 20s.) You’ll rarelysee her in anything but her uniformof T-shirts and jeans. “I’m just not aglitter-fancy person,” she says.Of course, she holds on to someof her favorite pieces, accumulatedthrough the years: a treasured pair ofearly Vince jeans, full of holes; a Balen-ciaga leather jacket she’s owned sinceshe was seventeen, which now feelslike a blanket when she slips into themolten sleeves. Designers send her newthings all the time, but they go straightto her sisters.“People think they need more stuf,but no,” she says. “Start with the sim-ple principle of waking up in the morn-ing and asking, ‘What makes my lifepossible?’ It’s such a simple question.