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The Last Buffalo

Many years ago I lived in brick building on the corner of Second Avenue and 4th Street in Greenwich Village. I was living there with three dancers from NYU. It was a magical time. It was a time when possibility ran through my veins. It was a time when Life was a merry-go-round. Once on all control was lost and once off the dizziness was overwhelming. It was a time of pushing boundaries and struggling to gain awareness.

In other words it was raw. The scrapes and bruises were real – and I gave as good as I got. 20 years old and living large as possible. In those days my mind was into Lao Tzu and Herman Hesse and Buddhism and the chivalry of martial arts. We ate Szechuan food almost nightly and drank red wine on the stoops. We threw parties and stayed up all night watching the lights go out in the street as the sun came up over the East River.

Yet in my heart I was a spotted pony running across the prairie. The city was not my home. Too much humanity packed too tightly and not enough nature to keep it real. I had moved to NYC from Montana. And I missed the silence and solitude of the big sky state. I loved the idea of being merged with the earth. To me back then the Native Americans embodied that ideal. I wished I had lived in that time when there were no roads except that which a man created in his desire. The land was wide open, the earth full of life and alive. In a way I was trying to live in both worlds while living in the Village.

One afternoon lying in bed after making love with one of the dancers I fell asleep and into a dream. In this dream Manhattan was all overgrown. The yellow cabs were all gone and the trucks as well. The buildings were all empty. I didn’t see any people on the sidewalks. I was standing under the arch in Washington Square park looking north up Fifth Avenue. I could hear a faint rumble in the distance. As I peered up Fifth Avenue I could make out shapes coming towards me. The noise got louder and approaching me was a huge herd of buffalo. They were stampeding down the avenue towards the park. As they moved the vibration was so great that the buildings crumbled as the herd passed leaving huge dust clouds in their wake.

I awoke suddenly and felt out of breath. My girlfriend was staring at me. She asked me what was wrong. She said I had a wild look in my eyes. I started to cry, slowly at first, one tear at a time, then I began sobbing. I’m sure she thought I was having a nervous breakdown. I felt like my heart was breaking. I was trying to say something through my grief. Suddenly I blurted out that they killed all the buffalo. That all the buffalo were gone and were never to return. Now I know my girlfriend was concerned by the look in her eyes. But to her credit she just gathered me up in her arms and held me for a long time while I cried and cried about the buffalo and their untimely demise.

To this day I don’t know why I reacted like that except to say it felt like a memory of a time long ago. It felt like a crack in my soul that light flooded into.

In to a place where I had never been or seen before. My heart softened that day in a place of concrete and steel. It felt like compassion.

It felt like after a hard rain and the sun breaks free. Everything all sparkly and clean.

That warm remembrance of a time gone by…

Thanks for reading.

J

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