Adventures in Love & Grace

“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.

 As we begin to find our stride, or as much of a stride as one can in this frenetic world, we stop for a moment awed with gratitude for all who journey with us or allow us to walk beside them. Thank you for loving us well, for your patience and encouragement as we change shape and grow. We’ve already chosen our intention for 2017 – play. Care to join the fun?

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.