[image: Granny Weatherwax, by Paul Kidby]My mood is much improved - thank you again, acupuncture - and I find myself moving into new territory in my life. One thing it means is that I have a sense of being ready to leave behind this blog, its persona and its subjects. "Dalai Grandma" was, after all, not my secret name, but my daughter's nickname for me, a sort of joke to say "I don't take myself too seriously," and it feels outgrown. To me, it suggested a persona (a word we literary types use for a self fabricated by the author) that was, oh, a little bit of kind old granny. That I am not, or let me say, I think there's more to me. A model I might be ready to incorporate is Granny Weatherall in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels - a no-nonsense practical witch, a healer who knows herbs and human psychology, like most witches, and who tackles evil with the fierce determination real work sometimes calls for.
I don't know whether I'll start a new blog tomorrow, or five minutes from now, or never. I do intend to leave this blog up and open to moderated comments for now. That means a comment on a post from last year would end up posted underneath that post. I have so liked making the friends I made here, and intend to keep following you in your blogs.
p.s. 2013 Obviously, I came back. Maybe a little witchier and more like Granny W. I imagine the main reason this has had so many hits was that for a while there, anyone who landed on the blog landed on this.
