“As soon as I saw you, I knew a grand adventure was
about to happen.”
A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
We began the year with a family intention –adventure. Our hope was to push beyond
boundaries and experience new places, people, food, ideas and when hesitation
tempted us, to let go and jump right in.
Some of adventures took the typical form as we
played in a Mammoth snowstorm, walked the Highline in NYC, read new books, escaped for an anniversary getaway to Mexico, rode
horses through sand dunes, watched sunsets and sunrises, listened at the Hollywood
Bowl, dined at restaurants without kid menus, held hands jumping in swimming
pools and fought backyard battles of good and evil.
Little did we know that January day on the beach when
we wrote down that simple word, our adventures would go well beyond the rest
and recreation part of the life menu.
In spring I accepted a full time marketing job with
SAGE Publishing, a large, international academic publishing company. The
opportunity to work primarily from home, incredible benefits and being part of
a great team made the change worthwhile. I’m still searching for my groove with
the switch to full time. Our dinners aren’t as fancy, there are always dishes
in the sink and a constant lingering guilt that I’m a lousy friend, but we are
finding our way. There is blessing to be found in making your world small for a
season. For now, my bandwidth has slimmed down pretty much to work and time
with my tribe- thankfully, I love both.
Mark spent the bulk of 2016 juggling two
careers, one as chaplain at Valle Verde and building his Watson Fiduciary
business. He faithfully worked seven days a week, ten hours a day, trusting
that he was building something worth the sacrifice. He was right. In September
Mark was able to make the leap to a sole focus on Watson Fiduciary. It’s been
exciting to watch his client list grow, even more exciting to see his talents
and compassion put to wonderful use. May we all have a Mark to care and protect
us in our most vulnerable moments.
It has been a year of investing for our family and
future. Ben and Clara have been troopers and teammates far beyond that 8 and 10
on their birthday crowns.
Ben is a voracious reader, full of kindness and
loyalty, and is becoming quite the strategic thinker - “I like finding the
loopholes.” He’s such a good kid. The best way to say it is this - you want to
be on Ben’s team to talk your way out of anything and then joyfully analyze
your escape together while eating ice cream sundaes and listening to The
Beatles as his blue eyes sparkle with joy and mischief.
Clara is a captivating mix of Broadway baby, flag
football cutie, expert organizer and artist/poet. Her biggest goal at the
moment is to “be a New York Times bestselling author.” She weaves with ease
Dean Martin, baseball, the current political mood, dark chocolate, bird
watching and deep theological insight into breakfast conversation. Ben said it
best, “Clara is the magic maker.” We are delightfully watching her magic
unfold.
Clara has always wanted a dog. As in, her forever
only hope, dream and wish. We Watsons are not traditionally dog people. We
asked for adventure, so we went for it and in May brought home Sir Ranger
Thomas Watson, our rescue puppy. It was love for all; we instantly all became dog
people.
Two weeks after bringing Ranger home he came down
with pneumonia and was then diagnosed with distemper, which is very rare in
dogs these days (and has about a 10% survival rate). For a month we were on deathwatch
to see if it had hit his neurological system – miraculously it didn’t. I’m
happy to report that we have a healthy, goofy, exuberant puppy that embodies
unconditional love and joy and daily drives us crazy.
“The
sting of grace is not unlike the sting of being loved well, because when we are
loved well, it is inextricably linked to all the times we have not been loved
well, all the times we ourselves have not loved others well, and all the things
we’ve done or not done that feels like evidence against our worthiness. Love
and grace are such deceivingly soft words – but they both sting like hell and
then go and change the shape of our hearts and make ourselves into something we
couldn’t create ourselves to be.”
–Nadia Bolz-Weber
True adventure comes with risk, effort and usually
involves some tears or more likely, ugly crying. The temptation is to only
embrace or share those picture perfect moments. Our hearts holds some
exquisitely beautiful memories, but the bulk of our year was built on abundant
messiness and that awkward phase of being in progress.
All these changes and new responsibilities made for
over functioning and exhausted grown ups. It gave us the gift of beyond patient
and resourceful kids. I was forced to face my perfectionism and people
pleasing. Mark had to embrace multi-tasking, which is way out of his comfort
zone.
We continue to learn the lesson that good enough is
pretty damn good. If you have a troop of healthy parents, kids and puppy piled in
a queen size bed at midnight cuddling through a thunderstorm you just can’t
complain or want for much more.
We experienced that sting of love and grace in kids
that encouraged us when our strength waned and we got snippy. Love in friends who
reached out and gave advice, play dates or dinner when they knew we had little
to return. Grace in my new colleagues who patiently mentored and taught me the
ropes, at the cost of additional work for them.
Love in those who did the scary
Google research for us when Ranger walked through the valley of the shadow to
protect us from that sadness. The grace of dearest friends loving us as dearest
family. Abundant love and grace in the Communion wafers and wine given as a
reminder that we are called to daily
bread, daily grace and daily love. One step at a time, kids.
Merry, merry with love,
Mark, Leah, Benjamin, Clara and Ranger
As always, huge thanks to Evan Janke for the photos
that make it look like we have our act together.
