Kerry and Anne have reflected a lot about the many roads, literal and figurative, that led them to one another, and the enormous number of coincidences that had to fall precisely in place such that they were ready to connect when they finally did. They attended a consumer financial protection conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2019. A program officer from a foundation introduced them, assuming they knew each other, since both lived in Tennessee. They only chatted for a few minutes (Anne thought Kerry was standoffish!) but stayed in touch on LinkedIn over the years, touching base whenever they changed jobs, and almost (but-not-quite) grabbing coffee. Another few years and whole lot of life passed — other relationships, other cities, and other career moves came and went, but in Spring 2025, Anne saw Kerry at a wine bar in Germantown after a Jason Isbell concert and approached him to say hi. A few months later, they started following each other on social media and soon established that they had very similar tastes in music, were both single, and loved to share a lot of hot takes about relationships, politics, cities... and everything else. A few months later, Kerry met Anne in Knoxville for a Mavis Staples concert when she was on her way to North Carolina. The music was followed by dinner, then drinks, then hours and hours of conversation. In so many ways, they've been on the same date ever since.