white buffalo

white buffalo: something sacred and rare; also a talented roots/American country musician

Wider than the high dessert highway it stood atop, there it was, a giant ashy white buffalo not even 50 feet from the hood of my car. I don't remember stopping, I don't even remember getting to where I was, but I was not moving, engine barely rumbling, impeded by this mammoth creature's fortitude. Like an all too obvious symbol of my very own self doubt, it both terrified and calmed me. Determined, I put my car in reverse and backed up slightly. Turning the steering wheel slightly to the right, I felt the rubber of the tires scrape across the road, pushing a small amount of loose gravel aside. Shifting to drive, I let the car roll forward, to the right, out of the buffalo's path. But to my frustration, the buffalo took two steps right and directly in my way. I tried the same process to the left, but the buffalo took two steps to the left, blocking any effort to move beyond. After what seemed mythical and majestic eternity, the world's longest staring competition had just been won by the only white buffalo left in northern America. I had no choice, reluctantly, I backed up one last time, swung my car around and drove off in the opposite directed, headed back to where I had just come from. As the yellow dashes and toothpick trees rushed past me, the buffalo  grew smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror. Confidence is not something that always propels you forward, into the future, but sometimes forces you to revisit the past. Do return, to do again.