“With literature, as with the arts, as with faith—and life—there is really no good stopping place.”
–Dr. Richard H. Cracroft

I took the quotation above from an article published in my alumni magazine by a former professor of mine, Dr. Cracroft. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, he taught the Wallace Stegner senior course, and that class shaped me as a person, a reader, and a writer.

I love this quote because I think I expect, or hope for, good stopping places. A nice photo finish to an event; a clear and natural tapering to something, an obvious denouement. But it’s not like that in life. It’s not even like that in books.

Even after we close a book, or finish writing a novel, the story goes on in our minds; we turn it over as we try to sleep; we move it forward as we wipe the counters, change the diapers. We leave it alone but come back to it and pick it up again.

I have crossed paths with Dr. Cracroft several times since I took that class. He lives close enough to me that sometimes I see him in our church building; I am always delighted, as I think we all are, when we see a teacher who truly changed our learning and our lives.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about letting my teaching license expire. I’ve kept it up for eleven years and right now there are many demands on my time (and keeping up a license requires taking classes, tests, etc.). But it’s hard to let go. For years, I dreamed of becoming a Dr. Cracroft or a Marilyn Fotheringham (seventh grade reading) or a Jeana Rock, Louise Durham, Joyce Oldroyd, Jon Ostenson, or Karen Brown (teachers who mentored me when I was a beginner). Reading this article made me realize that perhaps there never really is a good stopping place for the things we love.

As always, Dr. Cracroft has given me a great deal of food for thought.

The article by Dr. Cracroft can be found in its entirety here at BYU Magazine.

P.S. I’ve responded to all the comments on the last post. Many thanks for sharing what you love right now!

I’ve been thinking about creativity and how wonderful it is that we all have talents and different ways of expressing ourselves. I am lucky to know so many incredibly creative, talented people. Amazing authors, incredible cooks, fantastic organizers, kind and gentle teachers.

So I think it would be fun to spotlight some creative people I know. And for this post I thought I’d focus on people I know who are creative visually (and of course they are also amazing in a myriad of other ways as well). I am absolutely terrible at art, design, photography, you name it. So I am very glad to be surrounded by people who excel in all these areas!

My mom, Arlene Braithwaite. She painted the gorgeous picture above. Click here to see more of her art. I grew up in a home with paintings like this on the walls and I think it influenced me profoundly to be able to live in the midst of her creativity. (And once, as a toddler, I ruined a painting by coming in and drawing a big red smiley face on it–sorry, Mom!)

She retired this year after 30 years of working as a professor at SUU, and now she paints more…and she also is the one who drives up from southern Utah and takes care of my kids if I have travel. She’s so fun and creative and it makes me so happy to know that while I’m gone my kids are soaking up Grammy time. She has won many awards and been in many gallery shows and was named Utah Art Educator of the Year, and she will still use her talents to draw dinosaurs for my kids at their every whim. I adore her.

Erin Summerill…there is nothing she can’t do. She writes, is a photographer, a mom, a fitness instructor, and she doesn’t eat sugar. (I know!) She has taken our family photos for the past two years and done a great job. Her site is here and you will love her work. She is also one of the few people in the world who can make my kids laugh when they are having their picture taken and they all think she’s very fun. Erin is magic. I’m feeling extra grateful for Erin today because she is helping us get our family photos ready for framing (her husband Mark makes frames and they are seriously gorgeous–click here to see more).

My friend Brook Andreoli is also a photographer and has a beautiful, beautiful blog. She isn’t currently booking photo shoots but I am lucky enough to have her take my author photos. Brook was my first new friend when we moved back to Utah in 2007 and I am so grateful to know her.

My friend Mariam makes watches and bracelets and she just sent me a watch she made that was inspired by the colors of the cover of MATCHED so that I could wear it (the watch, not the book) on tour. I was really touched. Mariam was a senior on the cross country team when I was a freshman. She was one of the team captains and she was (and is) incredibly kind, grounded, gracious–the kind of person I wanted (and still want!) to grow up to be.

And Rachel Coleman (blog here) designed the banner for this site and is supremely talented in many, many ways. I love everything she designs. It’s all so clean and lovely.

So there you have it: creative people, the visual arts version. My life has been made more beautiful because of them and I very much appreciate it.

P.S. I haven’t forgotten about the last stop on the Breathless Reads tour–I’ll post about it on Thursday. And if anyone was there and has a picture of the event they could e-mail me, I would love it!