Things I've learned from being a musician:
1.  The gifts you are born with only take you so far.  Hard work and perseverance take you the distance.  Every single time.
2.  Practice is a waste of time if your hearts not in it.  That doesn't mean don't bother, it means collect yourself and get some work done.  Discipline in the deepest way.
3.  It's not getting out there into the 'real world' that's hard.  It's getting off your ass and swallowing your own fears... that's the hardest.  And you don't do that just once, you do it over and over and over.


Sure I could have and probably would have learned those same lessons being a history major or in engineering... but I'm a musician.  I've been one all my life.
All my early music memories are from church.  My first music disaster at the ripe old age of about 6 when I pushed the organ peddle too hard during the offertory and woke the ENTIRE church.  I cried.  My Dad hugged me afterwards and gave me a candy to suck on.
My first singing adventure when during my Sunday School solo my Dad sat at the back of the church and smiled at my whilst simultaneously dropping his denture.  I could never quite figure out why my Dad wanted to make me laugh while I was singing.
I hated having to learn to sing harmonies.  My Mom taught me very early in life so that I could do trio's with her and my Dad.  Now I have a good ear.
Singing and playing in Festivals and doing exams.  Jeez - it never stopped.
I'm still doing it.  Still singing, playing, teaching, passing it on to my own kids, listening to everything I can get my hands on, living music.  Music got me into biking and running oddly enough.  Biking, because I used my bike at university to get around instead of the subway... I was broke.  Running, because practice taught me that something hard could eventually be overcome and even fun.  The biggest thing that music has given me though is my sense of self.  I'm not sure how in a school of neurotic and insecure singers I found myself but I did.  It's taught me to roll with change and to look at my own weaknesses.  Crying in a practice room because I didn't want to do that audition and then going out there and doing it anyway (and sucking BTW) taught me that I can do it and still be me afterwards AND I can always get better (and I did).  When I think about how much fear drives our culture and our 'selves' I feel very thankful for that.
I had a conversation recently with a friend and we were talking about positive and negative experiences in our lives.  About how hard the hard stuff really can be.  What I ended up blurting out was that it's the hard stuff that's given me more and taught me more deeply than the easy stuff or even the happy stuff.  In fact, it's made me appreciate the good times even more.  I think it's partly because it makes us feel so deeply.  It's also made me way more comfortable with making hard decisions that I know are the right thing... even though they're hard.  For all that I'm thankful.  Very thankful.


I'm also deeply thankful for this bread.  And deeply satisfied.  I needed this bread.  After the slew of sweets that I found lacking for me this bread was just what the doctor ordered.  I've already eaten two pieces and it just came out of the oven a little while ago.  No too sweet.  A perfect crumb and a texture hefty enough to stand up to a good cup of tea... before I go and practice.



Sweet Squash Bread adapted from 'Simply in Season'
makes 1 loaf

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch each of ginger, nutmeg and cloves

1 1/4 cup squash puree (I used some frozen butternut squash puree from my freezer)
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
streusel topping (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour a loaf pan.  I have two loaf pan sizes but I don't know what the measurements are for them.  For this recipe I used the smaller of the two pans.
Combine the flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves together in a bowl.  Set aside.
In another bowl combine the squash puree, eggs and oil.  Mix well.
Add the squash mixture to the flour mixture and stir until combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.  Sprinkle with the streusel topping (if you want).  Bake for about 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing to cool completely.