Travel Journal (on the road)

Update entry 1

Nov. 24, 2009

Well it's almost December. Not sure where that fall went. I think doing the dance show this fall made the time go by sooo fast. I like it when time goes by fast though.

I want to put the tree up this weekend. I like the mood of the lights. One of my kids was born Christmas Eve and so I really like the feeling of Christmas because it reminds me of my babies.

I have had a busy fall. Too busy, really. I have been working on a Cd with Jesus Culture Music which I am really excited about. I am going to be recording I think in February. It'll be a live CD. I think it'll be my best yet.

I also did some Christmas music for this year. Just 6 songs and they are all original. I love Christmas music so much.

Hope everyone has some time this Christmas to just chill out and drink some egg nog with a friend.

October 2009

We are in Montana for a conference here and the dance company has it's opening performance with a new cast. I can't believe that ONE week ago these ladies didn't even know the dances. They are the quickest group of dancers I have ever worked with. They have surprised me in their mental concentration, their physicality and their amazing personalities.

We are doing our first highschool today so i'm not sure what that will be like. I like doing schools. When i traveled with Emotion I really wanted to do schools and when we did it was powerful and yet really vulnerable. Much different than doing it for a loving conference audience :)

Shekinah is with me too. Her and Aliya will have parts in the show again. They did a great job last time and I want to have them be a part of it.

I am feeling though like it's time to work my way out of it. I'm getting older for a dancer. I have too much respect for the art to keep going past the time that I should. We'll see but that's where I'm at right now.

I am doing a conference with Rik Pino which I have not done before. I have done events with him but we were there at different times so this will be the first for this.

We'll see how it all goes

Heather Clark August 29 at 9:06pm

The Fall

I love the fall. It's my favorite season. I wonder sometimes if people who like to be organized like the fall cause it's kind of a time to get schedules going and have everything in it's place. I love the beauty of fall too though. The colors and the temperature. It always makes me feel settled and peaceful.
This fall I am going to be working with Jesus Culture Music doing a record with them. I first was interested in them after hearing Kristene Meuller's CD because I so loved the production on it. Still I am listening to it and find something new that I like in the production. I will be working with Jeremy, the same producer, and this is one of the things I am most excited about. He's very talented and I enjoy his work.

With the dance company - well I am actually on the plane right now on my way to LA for our last performance for the summer cast. We started in April and we are done after this show. Then I have a new cast starting to learn the work in a few weeks. Luckily Amanda, one of the dancers/teachers in the summer cast is going to work with me to teach the choreography because it takes a lot of time and energy to do that! I will be making some changes. Not totally sure how many yet. I mean I am kind of chomping at the bit to change a lot of it but someone brought up the idea that you want it to be that people who saw it and want to have it into their churches/cities actually get the same show. That, and the fact that to start from scratch - TONS of work. It would require time that I just don't have right now. Perhaps soon enough. I would like to zone in on a particular topic of "child soldiers of war" and "human trafficking" Very sensitive topics and a bit more narrow than the general heart of mercy topics that we are going after right now. I don't know for sure what to do there. I mean I like to create and I hope I'm not bored with doing the same thing we just did. THOUGH, I do think that there is a bulk of the choreography that is great and could stand to be seen a little longer. We'll see how it all develops.

The kids... Josiah is going into grade 3, Shekinah grade 2, Aliya still has one more year of preschool cause she's a beginning of the year baby. And little Cash is going to go to preschool 2 mornings a week. Sooo cute. He really wants to be a big boy with his siblings. It's very sweet. That will give me a slight bit of time to focus on some things that I have let slide this past year.

I feel like it's a new season, but then I always think that and then I'm surprised to find out I'm making one more lap around this mountain.

I know this - I am feeling some new things to do with the arts and the use of the arts in worship. I am still working to put language to it because I haven't actually seen it before. So I'm just closing my eyes a lot and picturing what it is and then trying to write and explain it. I feel like it's in "the womb" right now. The funny thing was, as soon as I started to feel this I got calls that week from some ministers saying "What are you feeling new in the arts? Let's do it" It's going to take a few brave leaders to try it out and see if it can fly or whether it's just too out there for where the church is at right now.

I have put my clothing line on pause for a while. It was really more a pain than anything cause I just didn't have the help that I needed in order to keep it going. But it's something that has no time limits. I can be old and design clothes. I can't be old and dance the same! And those of you who read this and say "you can dance when you're older..." um, have you seen me dance? Some of that stuff I can't see myself doing at 50, you know what I mean? There's just a time to step aside and know when your time is done and it's time to let someone else take over. I had someone tell me a few years ago it was time for me to hang up my dance shoes cause I was getting old... I did for a bit, but I gotta pioneer some of this stuff first. We'll see

Update

There have been some really amazing things that have happened over the last while.

DANCE: We have been doing the dance production for the past while and there is nothing better than the feeling of stepping out on the stage with such a profound purpose as putting food in children's bellies, rescuing children from being forced into being a soldier, raising money for AIDS babies. It has been fantastic. I can't think of anything I would rather being using my art for. The company has 5 of us core dancers and then Shekinah plays the main role holding the show together. Amanda Rota Roach, Jessica Simmons, Anika Ste. Marie and our newest member Jessica Lepp are all part of the cast.

MUSIC: I am on my way to Redding Cali to meet with the people from Jesus culture music. I think that I will be working with them and they will be signing me to their label. That's what the plan looks like anyway. I heard a cd done by them recently and it was in my opinion the best sounding cd I have heard in the Christian world. But that's just my opinion :) So it will be an honor to work with their producer. It will be nice to be in a team rather than floating here on my own.

KIDS: Oh man nothing like the spring when you see that your kids have grown so much. Shekinah put on her one piece bathing suit the other day and it was so small. I couldn't believe she had grown THAT much in a year. Amazing. She is off her training wheels too, but gets kind of nervous. Cash is so big too. No baby anymore. Sometimes I still get sad about that and I dream about adopting but I am also very satisfied and happy with the 4 I have. It seems like there are 2 kinds of women. One that says "I"M DONE!!!" and they know they aren't having any more babies. And then those who will walk around with that little bit of sadness inside always having the longing for another baby. I think that's me. Satisfied but longing.

BELLA DANTE: Well I just sold I think all of my silk tops. There is one left. And all my stuff I designed has pretty much sold out. I have some fabric for some summer designs but with the economy the way it is it's hard to keep the prices low enough for people to want to buy and yet high enough that I can pay the seamstress. Oddly enough it's like I shop less now since I have the line. This fall I want to see about getting stuff into some boutiques. I'm not really a shy person at all but when it comes to "selling myself" I'm as shy as it gets. I need to find somone who could do all that for me.

on the plane

I am on the plane on my way to Harrisburg PA with Shekinah. she is watching a cartoon on half my computer screen while I type in the other. I am working on the structure of how the dance production LEAST OF THESE is going to work, making it easy to travel with but still not so stripped down that there isn't a lot of creativity to it. I love production. It's my very favorite thing to do. Dance in production form. It's hard when you're obsessive though because things can easily take over and if there is one thing I hope I have learned in the past 10 years it's how to NOT let one thing take over. man i used to be bad!! On March 23- 27 we're inviting dance leaders to come to Kamloops where i live and learn the dances so that they can take them back to their churches and do then in their communities and surrounding areas.

I am happy to be with Shekinah just us girls for the next few days. I think it will be short but fun. Her and I are going to be painting tonight at the service. we did last year too. Sooooo cheese but we're wearing clothes that are kinda the same. She loves that kind of thing and wants to be like mom.

I got some of my spring clothing line yesterday, tried it on and I LOVE IT!!! I so love these spring items. LOVE THEM. There's this one linen dress for summer and it's like so cute - everyone needs a linen summer dress. I think we're going to make it in plus sizes and regular.

I have written like 5 or 6 songs in the past 2 weeks. I am planning on doing 4 of them at this confernce in harrisburg. It's called FIRESTORM and one of the songs is specifically for that theme. Shek is starting to get bored I can tell. She's about to whine. My girls are sooo different. My boys are quite a bit alike - like total mini NOlans.

Speaking of Nolan.... he's been in Vegas for the past days training at Couture's gym and has had the best time ever. His phone ran out of battery so I didn't get to talk to him yesterday but he said it was such a blast. I want to convince him to go down there in the summer but someone said its grossss hot there in the summer. 4 kids - no thanks. So we'll see. Maybe I could find cheap flights and all 6 of us could go for Spring Break. YIKES - a holiday would not be cheap for 6 of us.

I only slept for like an hour last night. COULD NOT sleep for the life of me. I was excited about my clothing line and also you know when you have to get up at 4:00 am to catch a flight and you get kind of antsy cause you think you're not going to wake up or your alarm isn't going to go off. That's sort of what I was like. I had a nap on the plane then worked on the show. Now I'm tired again though.

Early Morning

Wow it was an early morning this morning. 10 to 5 Cash woke up. So now it's 7:00 and I'm really quite tired. Still I'm ready for the day, have done laundry, baked muffins, checked emails, got 3 kids dressed and ready and now i'm sitting down to a cup of tea with 3.25% milk in it which tastes ever so good even though there's probably 500 calories in a quarter cup.

I worked yesterday on some spring designs and just wish they could be done like right now! And then I also have been song writing. I'm really into the blood right now and the word redeemed. I really like these songs. I have 5 now. It makes me remember that I have a whole bunch of songs that I have never done anything with.

Today is one of those days that I wish I had some extra money to go shopping for clothes or hang out with a friend for lunch. I expect as the sun comes up more that it will be clear and sunny but the sky is not looking that way so far. The kids only have a half day of school cause it's parent teacher interviews. I have 2 extremes. The teacher of one could really care less to meet (therefore I'm not) and then the other kid's teacher has created a 45 minute show and tell and interview! Somewhere in between would be nice! I am not really a big fan of school to be honest. Well I mean I'm a fan of learning but there are a lot of social type pressures that like it or not are there and if you don't somewhat live up to them you set your kid up to be the "only one who didn't...." Maybe since it's a half day today I will take the kids to the McDonald's play place to boot it around.

People ask how I could possibly be bored but today is one of those days. I'm just longing for something new and fresh, something different, a new person to hang out with. I should create a new mess in my house just to have something different to clean - k maybe not. Something different. I have to say (and I can on here) that it drives me nuts when I say that I am wanting something new and people through out these trite ideas of how I can fix that problem, like as if first of all I haven't thought of it and secondly like it's just that easy.

Ever notice how people with certain values think that things are really easy and should just be a simple math problem. But the values are great. It's just that the solutions are hard and complex involving people's lives not just ingredients in a cake.

That's all.

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