I will be picking Marta up at the Asheville airport this evening, marking the end of our voluntary separation. When we first made the decision last summer, we were basically hedging our bets that one of us would be able to land that elusive first tenure-track job. Though it was good for us professionally, all year long we only had one thing in mind: Make it through the year and then never be apart again! Now that it’s over I can say that we achieved our goal and both had the types of experiences and success that we had been lacking before holding our first time university faculty positions. In the long run, we don’t know where we’ll ultimately end up or where life will take us, but we will do it together.

The picture is the winter view from the house we’ve been renting in North Carolina. It will be tough to leave such a beautiful setting, but moving to a major metropolitan area has it’s obvious advantages for a pair of musicians.