The plan was to come back from Alcatraz and drive through North Beach to see if we could find parking and go to a pastry shop or cafe.  While on the ‘rock’ earlier that day, we’d decided cannolis at a cafe were preferable to a sundae at Ghiradelli.  Such sophisticated travelers!

We were all tired from a long week and neither Ben nor Alex were even remotely entertained by the idea of riding on a cable car.  I had to let go of feeling like a failure for having my nephews visit and NOT have a cable car experience.  When a pass through North Beach, all the way through to Coit Tower did not reveal a magical rock- star parking spot, we opted for a trip back to Trieste on Piedmont in Oakland.  I assured them we’d find cannolis there and parking would be easy.

Parking was abundant in the lot behind Trieste and we locked up and went in.  We got the cannolis to go and Alex looked around at the looks of the place and decided he liked it.  So we stayed, sat by the wall and realized that we were the only people facing out.  Everyone else was looking in our direction because a television was directly above us broadcasting the Tour de France.  We enjoyed being in the fray for about fifteen minutes.  There’s nothing in particular that comes to mind when I think about what we might have talked about sitting there.  And anyway, what came next was so traumatizing that even if there was a whisper of a memory, it was slapped out of consciousness.

We walked with all the time in the world in front of us on the way back to my car, despite the fact that we still had to pack their bags, eat dinner, make a play list of the music we’d listened to during our week together and watch a movie.  Then I saw that someone had smashed my rear passenger window.  I got that visceral punch in the gut feeling that accompanies that genre of rude awakenings.  I’d experienced it before and it wasn’t completely unfamiliar.  The shattered glass on the asphalt next to my car reflected the inner  crashing realization that this was a first for Ben and Alex.

I knew immediately that what had been stolen was their back packs.  We didn’t think twice about taking their back packs with us.  We were going to be right back.  Plus if you lock your car, you’re protecting your belongings, right?  And, who would take something that wasn’t theirs?  Not to mention, break a window to do so.

Of course there’s the actual inventory of belongings, mine and theirs, and I still have to call to make that claim, but the intangible thing that was taken with those back packs is irreplaceable.

I must have said, ‘Sorry you guys; I am SO sorry you guys; you guys, I’m so sorry,’ in a loop at least 3 or 4 times.  Each time I said it a chime sounded, resonating deeper and deeper,  twisting the startling, cold splash to the face reality of how this incident would leave its imprint on them.  Of all the definitions of reality, here’s the one that fits this situation the best: the state of the world as it really is rather than as you might want it to be.

Our last night.  Those fuckers!  They had NO idea what they took with those back packs!  And damned if I was gonna let them lay claim on the week we had just come tumbling out of.

We were frozen there for a while.  Emotions moved through following the trajectory of loss – shock, disbelief, anger, negotiation, acceptance.  When we were wrung out, after the shock waved through and we were all tenderized and raw, we piled our brokenness into my car and drove the short distance back to my house.  Alex was incredulous that we were less than five minutes from my house.  Insult upon injury, how could something so bad happen so close?

Our plan for the evening was tossed out the window.  Some continuity of care was called for, some ceremony, some way to midwife the transition that needed to happen, the shift that needed to take place.  We washed our hands to clean off the dirty feeling.  We lit candles to cast light on the dark, poisonous feelings.  I told them the story Jack Kornfield tells (or maybe it is Pema Chodron, or Cecil Williams, or Michael McGee, or Thich Nhat Hanh – I’m so lucky to have a few good voices in my head) about a couple of POWs returned from war that run into each other years after their release.  One soldier says to the other, ‘Have you forgiven your captors?’  The other soldier replies, ‘Never!’ – clearly still full of vengeance.  The first soldier replies, ‘Then you’re still in prison.’  We talked about how holding onto anger is like a poison in your system.  And we couldn’t let whomever had broken into my car take what we’d just had together over the course of the past week with this one unconscionable, self-serving act.

I grabbed a stash of postcards and told them to pick a card, pick any card, and we wrote down the worst thing about what had happened, the best memory from the week, and the silver lining following the incident, i.e. ‘at least…’  Those cards are sealed in an envelope that will serve as a time capsule for the next ten years.  I’ll be 54 when we open up that envelope!

We wrote down all the bad stuff that we wanted to let go of on a lined piece of paper and we set those pieces of paper to flame using our candles.  The burning papers turned ash were let go into a Tibetan singing bowl.  The fire alarm only went off once, adding some necessary levity and giggles.

Ben purchased a giant Sequoia tree seed germination kit from the gift store at Muir Woods.  He started the germination process at my dining room table, diligently following the instructions on the canister earlier that day or the day before.  The seed is going through a forced winter in my freezer right now.  On July 28th, the seed will emerge into spring on my kitchen windowsill.  I told Ben and Alex that when I root the seed, I will mix in the ash from our burned pieces of paper and the ash will become part of the nutritive soil that will help the tree to grow, compost.  This grounded the geology lessons of the week, the first from the volunteer instructor in Muir Woods, and then the floodplain/mineral rich valleys for vineyards education we’d gotten from Jack on the way to Lake Sonoma along the Dry Creek Valley and past the Warm Springs Dam.

Bittersweet, right?  In the end, the incident and how it was processed served to solidify our time together.  I was no longer the adult in charge, this  shared trauma served to level our playing field.  As Rachel Naomi Remen said during the workshop in May, true service, at its heart, is mutually beneficial.  When you hold yourself apart in the role of care-taker, its empty and hollow.  Real relationship happens between equals.

Alex and Ben have a sweet relationship, they always have.  They share a common language influenced by the games they play and the proximity in which they’ve grown up.  I hope its always so.  All week Ben was the first one to offer to carry a load to or from the car, thoughtful, accommodating, genuinely civic in his tendencies and generous when it came to sharing.  There wasn’t as much evidence of Alex sharing these tendencies throughout the course of the week, and I recognize that Ben and Alex are different people who come from very different households.  Alex is an only child and Ben finds his way in a household of many, there’s a pecking order and accommodation is key.  Alex is more assertive and confident.  The kind of traits that got him to push through any doubts and get up on the surf board in Pacifica the previous day.

On the drive back to my place that last night, after the incident, Alex requested the front seat and there was no contest or question.  The violation of space had clearly shaken him the most.  He’d had that back pack since first grade.  And inside was the blue box that transported whatever his most prized possession of the day happened to be.  I’ve seen that box carry everything from special rocks to Pokemon cards, to matchbox cars, to Transformers, to the gaming device and games that were in it the day it was stolen.

All soft and raw he sat next to me and in the most genuine voice offered to help pay for my broken window.  Holy cannoli, batman.