The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane von Furstenberg Page A

Brazilian with long, curly hair who lived in a bamboo house on the beach and hadn’t worn shoes in ten years. I felt so far away and my life took yet another turn. Paulo smelled delicious, a mixture of the frangipani flowers that decorated his house and cloves from the Gudam Garang cigarettes he smoked. He collected and sold textiles, spoke Bahasa Indonesia, and took me and the children to discover all the temples and mysteries of the island. At first it was a vacation affair, a way to forget the terrible weeks of my mother’s illness . . . another escape. In retrospect, it should have stayed that way, but it didn’t.
    I was completely and absolutely infatuated with everything in Bali, including Paulo. I did not think of or wish for a future with him, but I was captivated by the adventure of the unknown. When I returned to New York, there was Barry, looking at me lovingly, searching into my eyes and my heart, being sad. He knew something had changed. I felt terrible, but my rush of emotions was overruling my reason.
    My children were not happy with me when Barry moved out and Paulo joined us in New York. Nor was my mother. What was I doing? Was I really in love with that “jungle man”? Was I going to give upBarry’s unconditional love? Everyone was incredulous. I was defiant. More than being in love with Paulo, I was in love with the disruption that love can cause.
    Paulo made his official appearance on the New York scene at a dinner I gave in my Fifth Avenue apartment for Diana Vreeland and her book Allure . He appeared barefoot, wearing a silk shirt over an ikat sarong from the island of Kupang. Eyebrows were raised, but I didn’t care. In fact, I enjoyed it. I was on a mission to be provocative, and craved the adventure of it all.
    Paulo was also a constant reminder of Bali, that magical island which had so inspired me with its beauty, its fabrics, and its colors. I created a whole makeup line called Sunset Goddess. I was living the fantasy of being a goddess myself and dedicated a perfume, Volcan d’Amour (Volcano of Love), to my new man. Cloudwalk was soon filled with Indonesian textiles and artifacts and I planted colorful ceremonial flags along the river that are there to this day.
    Change followed change when I took the children out of school in New York, moving them permanently to Cloudwalk. I felt a sense of danger in the city. John Lennon had been killed by a deranged fan at the doorway of his building in December 1980, and I was haunted by the kidnapping of Calvin Klein’s eleven-year-old daughter, Marci, for ransom. Thankfully she had been released unharmed, but my anxiety persisted. Alexandre and Tatiana were eleven and ten, too old to be taken to school and young enough to be swayed by the temptations of city life and the pseudosophistication of some of their city friends. I wanted them to connect with nature, to do without the constant activities in New York, and develop their own resources and imaginations. With some amazement, I realized there had been value to my periods of childhood boredom in Belgium.
    I also made the move because of me. I was less interested in beinga tycooness with a fast life than I was in being a more present mother and a more devoted partner to a man. It was a phase, but it was real. I went to New York on Tuesday mornings and was back at Cloudwalk on Thursday nights. Paulo spent his days building a new barn and the children went to Rumsey Hall, a nearby private school.
    My makeover extended to my clothes. I gave up wearing my own dresses, which were then being designed by licensees anyway, and wore only sarongs, then replaced my sexy high heels with sandals in the summer and boots in the winter. I wore exotic jewelry and let my hair go very curly, often with a fresh flower in it. Paulo and I traveled back to Bali and his bamboo house on the beach whenever we could. Often the children came along.
    L ooking back, I smile at the ways I tailored my personality to merge with