It all started with an idea. Somehow the new year is bringing a flood of openings. I don't know if you can feel it, but there seem to be so many happenings -- comings and goings -- shedding of the old skin and donning of the new. I have been noticing this in so many ways, and I decided to write an album about it. Well, that's not exactly the truth . . . I think the album wrote me. I could feel it "knocking" and asking to be listened to, sometime around October. It seemed like the new songs were here. I wasn't sure because they didn't all have form yet, but I could sense them. This might sound strange, but they have feelings to me. They wake me up in the middle of the night urging to be remembered. So in December, I sat and corralled them, and Now I Know was born. The idea was that sometimes there is this turning point where you come into your own. Where things seem clear and you have certainty. All of the doubts that haunted you are quieted. The road may not feel totally pre-paved, but it unfolds before you, and you just know. This is your direction, it's absolutely calling to you, and now is the time. So, I guess in a way this CD is a tribute to that inner voice in all of us. We like to say that it has been whispering to us quietly, but in truth it probably has been shouting out for a while now, trying to get our attention. And we finally have the fortitude to listen.