And should I then presume? And how should I begin?

Drip. Plip. Plop. Plash. Plwash.

That's the sound of the droplets of bloggish thought that have been trickling out of the water tank (of imagination) in the (metaphorical) loft upstairs over the past few months, encouraged by reading the posts of my pals (see left). And I suppose that this is the plwash, in the wording of that particularly ugly analogy.

Beginnings are fraught with anxiety and risk (you don't want to know how long it took me to decide on the bland url for this blog). And every moment of self-expression is a new beginning - from 'I love you' to playing the first chord of a new song to ... well, 'drip' (not wanting to make a (melo?)drama out of a trivial incident ... hold on, I suppose that's exactly what I want to do - as Julian says: 'our tiny personal dimensions provide us with our biggest emotions').

It's Prufrock's dilemma (hence the name of this post). But, as Joni Mitchell sang in the unfortunately-entitled Willy:

You're bound to lose/ If you let the blues get you scared to feel.

So this is my attempt to beat the inertia, dare to disturb the universe, admit to feeling something - my presuming that I've got something to say. And it's a step away from being 'too afraid to be free' (in the words of The Sun Brothers' Unto Thine Own Self Be True). I'm meeting T.S. Eliot's hyacinth girl and managing to speak; in the 'darkened underpass' I'm asking the question that Morrissey couldn't.

OK - that's probably overstating the value of this post. I can't say what they would have said. But I'm at least saying this, which is a start.

This is the way that I've begun, then. I feel I should also quickly explain why I chose the (current) name for this blog, and the URL. The URL: 'images' is short for Images of Dusk, and we record music under that name. I've called this 'good dreamers' because I thought I should choose someone else's words (that's how I always start - if T.S. Eliot can do it ...), because I wanted to choose something sincere to hang over the blog and remind me to say what I think, because I liked the idea that good dreamers might 'pass this way some day' and maybe add a few comments. I've also always liked the aspiration in the phrase (what is a good dreamer?); and the reminder that it's all very well 'hiding behind bottles' with these hidden, internal, smug beliefs in the beauty or acuteness of our own dreams, but until we express them somehow, they're thin, untested and almost unreal. And I wanted this blog to be a place to express the thoughts I have - to challenge myself to ask whether I am a good dreamer or just indolently carrying around a few half-baked ideas.

It's ended up being more of a plwash than I'd intended - hopefully I'll be a little more concise and coherent with my subsequent posts. But this was always about getting over that first hurdle more than saying anything very profound.

Comments

[Tom Steinberg]

Welcome to the gang! You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...

[Le Poulet Noir]

Yes, you'll have the warm smell of colitas rising up through the air until the cows come home.
According to a brief Google search, colitas is an inflammation of the large intestine (and according to the useless-but-free Systrans web translator, "colitas" means "colitas" - thanks a bunch), but I think it is also hispanic slang for pot.

[thesunbrothers]

I do like the water tank analogy. I'm very pleased to see this blog appear in all it's new born glory.

[Helen]

great start, Peter, you are now linked to the most famous blog about classical concert harps *in the world*.