Both UnderWoman and Brian have a bit of an obsession with underwear...especially LONG UNDERWEAR.
To begin with, they LOVE to layer.
UnderWoman is prone to starting with silk and/or very fine, thin cotton.
Brian tends towards synthetics and high tech.
UnderWoman adores winter for its crisp cold; for the occasional scent of pure ozone cracking the air; for snow, in all its forms; for cross-country skiing, vensison stew, red wine...and for the ability to lavish layers of cashmere, feathers and fur on top of cotton and silk.
Brian finds her look intriguing: With her marauder boots, her silk long undies, her long lynx coat, tasteful and restrained cammo accents, she appears to be the hunter and the hunted at once.
UnderWoman finds Brian to be a synesthetic study in contrast: His polypopylene underlayers hold the body odor in. His Goretex outerwear still hints of doe urine. And there's something smokey, peaty, musky, heady about him: A fire he had lit in the woods? Dried fruit undertones from custom-blended pipe tobacco? Islay Single Malt? Civet?
At any rate, while they refuse to call it "a date," on this day, without entourage, Brian and UnderWoman head to Burton Boards of SoHo, where they take inspiration from the company's hard-core credo:
"We stand sideways. We sleep on floors in cramped resort hotel rooms. We get up early and go to sleep late. We've been mocked. We've been turned away from resorts that won't have us. We are relentless. We dream it, we make it, we break it, we fix it. We create. We destroy. We wreck ourselves day in and day out and yet we stomp that one trick or find that one line that keeps us coming back. We progress."
There, B. and U. enter the sub-zero Cold Room -- arrayed in their own regalia and trying on paraphernalia from Burton's new Analog line as ruse.
UnderWoman recites from Burton's "Love Letters to a Mountain" campaign a few years back, in which snowboarders wrote postcards to the Sierra Nevadas, Rockies and Alps; how they bought their passions to the peaks...and were sometimes given hard knocks and crushed bones in return; yet took it in stride.
Brian synthesizes from Mark Helrin's "Winter's Tale" -- a 700-page tome that UnderWoman knows by heart -- lives in fact -- savoring the snow and the ice as she does; her thermoses, thick blankets and headlamp always at the ready for a fresh fall; living out of doors...dawn, dusk, daylight, night; with friends and loved ones or alone; tracking animals; reading and writing poetry; watching old movies ("Dr. Zhivago" is a favorite for these occasions) in the Pinetum of Central Park; seeing stars; casting shadows.
Does she say it aloud, or not? All the raccoons who have come to her side. The raccoon who traversed her windowsill one sunset. The fox family. Her relationship with Pale Male and other birds of prey. The significance of animals in her life....Even alabaster animals as they emerged from the backs of alabaster women, children and men as seen at a Chelsea art show last week. And like the spirit-guide animals of "Golden Compass" (even if the physics of that film fell short for her tastes). And the boy at Green Chimneys who called her "princess" and recognized her...and himself...as every animal in the Native American wheel.
It is almost too much to bear!
She pours ice water on Brian.
They wait a while.
Wetness does not penetrate.
Dryness holds.
They are warm despite deep freeze.
They will be fine! They will be more than fine....
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