What Really Matters III

when i try to find the answer
to the question
what really matters?
i 
get 
stressed

i 
run around
in circles
looking 
for something
i can't find.

maybe this is it!
but what if it isn't?
that over there
seems to matter more 
than this
but 
everyone says
THIS matters most

i get dizzy
fall down
look up
at the huge
              blue
                  sky
                     above 
                             me
grass tickles my skin

i fall again
in love
with this fresh nowness
and 
forget the question


Carol Barrow
August, 2018

What Really Matters II

The summer before I started second grade, we moved into a new home. Somehow, between our old house and the new one, my favorite stuffed, yellow kitty got lost. I loved that kitty. To me, she was as real and alive as anyone. She mattered, and I spent many, many nights looking up into the darkness and searching for an answer as to where she could be. I had failed as her caretaker, and I felt as though a piece of my heart had been yanked from my chest.

We moved again, to Colorado, when I was a young teen. Moving from a small, conservative town to a large city, I felt like I had just awakened from a long and boring dream. There was so much that mattered! I became aware of war protests, and suddenly the Vietnam War mattered. So did my new friends, bell-bottoms, make-up, and long hair. Boys mattered; especially the one who asked me to dance. Sometimes God mattered, and so did the huge pimple that showed up the morning before a date.

Now, fifty years later, I  still remember many of the things that once seemed important. Who I think I am is made up of those memories and many others; they have stuck to my True Self like frosting on a cake. So sweet.

I notice that my ideas of what matters come and go, many lasting a few minutes; some, several decades. But a ribbon of mattering has been woven throughout my life. It is made of air, food, water, sun, beauty, kindness, friendship, and love. These things have mattered throughout, even when I turned my attention to other matters.

But what happens when I die? Does mattering need a “someone” for it to matter to? Are there some things that REALLY matter, no matter what? I don’t know how to know. I don’t know if the Earth needs us, or if it matters to the sun that the planets encircle it. I don’t know if the universe cares what goes on within it or around it. Still, I have a sense that all of this does somehow matter. Like the dancer depends on floor and gravity, space and relationship, all that we are aware of depends on everything else. In the dance, all parts matter, and maybe that is true of the universe, of everything. Acknowledging this, it makes sense to me to be with each moment, each dance partner, each stuffed, yellow kitty as though they all matter, but to do so lightly, with the freedom to accept what comes next in these ever-changing appearances of life. 

Do all of these words matter? They did while I typed them. Now, I'm not sure. And that feels so right.