Bella From the Heart: On Health Struggles, Happiness, and Everything In Between

 

Sekhmet, in Egyptian mythology, is the goddess of war, of the hot desert sun, of chaos and plague and vice versa of healing. Terrified of her enemies, promising just retribution for her friends – especially the pharaohs – Sekhmet kept the balance between the reproductive and destructive forces of the ancient world.

“She’s me on a good day,” Bella Hadid said. Her phone is open on the kitchen table, and an illustration of Sekhmet, fangs and nails bared and pulling a bloody ax, serves as its home screen. She moved into this apartment, a sprawling sanctuary in midtown Manhattan whose giant windows make up the skyscraper floors to the north, early last year. She admitted that it was a waste of the rental. A week after her arrival, she was burning sage to clear any remaining negative energy in the space, and the fire alarm went off. “My neighbors were like, You’re burning the building down, aren’t you? I was like, I’m just a sage! To the west, the Hudson River radiated a languid midday twinkling light. A beach parasite at heart, Bella feels she needs to see at least one piece of water. “You always look up and you like, if only I lived in that apartment, I would be happy. That’s how I feel about this apartment. Does that mean I didn’t cry this morning before you got here? ”

In particular, this is not a good day. Bella thinks she’s in Pennsylvania, at the ranch she bought a few years ago with her mother and sister, while near her horse, Blue, a chocolate-colored warhorse with a snowy muzzle and bright blue eyes. But the paparazzi drones hovering above — in response to a wide-screened home movie she hopes won’t be part of this story — has her back to the city. Her phone vibrated; that’s one of the affirmations she gets for hours or so on an app called I Am: I’m erasing old stereotypes and letting new ones emerge. She walked me through the Sekhmet storyboard on her laptop. (Bella loves creating Keynote decks with images that inspire her, and she makes them almost mandatory.)

This is the goddess in an illustration, painted in gold, with her face ringed in flames; and in another, the halo of the sun, poured on what looked like old Hervé Léger, and led a large male lion on a leash. Sexy, dangerous. “A lot of people told her she was ugly,” explains Bella. “By the way, she is not. She just has to do what’s best for her people. I like to think this is who I am inside. She is the fire that I have in me. If I can lead her, I can walk into a room and change the energy of the room. When I’m not feeling well, it’s harder.”