Miranda in Retrograde

17. Capricorn Season

CAPRICORN SEASON

Buckle up, darling Gemini, because today’s going to be a wild one. The Waxing Gibbous Moon in Aries combined with Mars in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn means the day is rife with high emotion and turmoil.

I go home to Boston for Christmas. I always go home to Boston for Christmas, and historically, I’ve always looked forward to it.

I feel lucky to have a family home to return to, one where not much has changed since I left. The Christmas tree is in the same corner it’s always in. The angel at the top sits slightly crooked just as it did when I was little. My parents aren’t the type to redo their kids’ bedrooms after they’ve moved out. I’d like to think it’s for nostalgic reasons, but I honestly think they just can’t be bothered. As such, my childhood bedroom is more or less untouched from my teen years. There’s still the periodic table of elements on the back of my bedroom door. The poster of the boy band hidden behind it. The deep purple bedding that I’d proudly replaced my little kid star sheets with. And books. A lot of books, all physics adjacent. Most of them gifts.

I’ve always found the return to this space comforting. A reminder that even though everything changes, some things stay the same. This year, however, the room feels stifling. The whole house feels stifling. The conversation most of all. Not that much has even been directed my way. From the moment I landed at Logan International Airport, I’ve felt like an obligation that nobody has the heart to ignore completely, but nobody wants to quite deal with, either.

As always, every family gathering has been a litany of various career achievements, discussions of the latest academic journals, and a surprising amount of scholarly gossip.

I used to love it.

Now I can’t help but wonder: If I weren’t present, would I be the gossip?

But it’s Christmas. They’re my family. And I love them.

So I’ve pasted on my smile. I’ve nodded along. I’ve made the requisite “I’m so impressed” noise at every last humble-brag.

And I’ve waited. For someone to ask about me. For a chance to tell them about Christian and Kylee. About how much I’m loving tutoring. About the Horoscope Project.

But by Christmas dinner, it’s become painfully clear that the questions aren’t coming. Now that I’m not playing their game, measuring myself by their same metrics, it’s like I’ve been benched. Permitted to sit with the team, but not allowed on the field.

Over dessert—a mediocre, store-bought chocolate pie—I listen as they debate whose schedule is the most logical for taking me to the airport tomorrow morning, as though I’m a tedious but necessary errand. It’s at that moment I decide…

I’m done with it.

“So, I’m a Gemini rising,” I say, rather rudely interrupting.

The silence at the Reed family dinner table isn’t quite deafening, but it’s definitely present.

“I’m sorry.” My father leans forward and cups his ear, as though his hearing is the issue. “What’s this now?”

“You know. Astrology. As in you’re a Virgo sun, like me, Dad.”

“A Virgo… sun,” he repeats. He looks completely confounded, which is an expression I’ve not ever seen on my brilliant father’s face.

I glance around the table waiting for someone to ask about the distinction between sun sign and rising, what it means.

To ask anything at all. To care .

Instead, I get expressions that range from confusion on my brothers’ faces to the pity on my mother’s.

“Oh, Miranda,” she says with a sigh. “I had no idea how much you were struggling.”

“I’m not struggling, Mom. I’m… well, I kind of feel like I’m thriving, actually.”

The second I say it, I realize how true it feels. Since my year of living by my horoscope is actually an academic year, I’m roughly halfway through. And though I’m still struggling to convince my brain that the moon appearing to be in front of Aries in the Northern Hemisphere on any given night could in any way determine how my day will go, I’m also realizing…

Maybe the whole point is that it has nothing to do with my brain. That it’s the first time in my life where logic and facts haven’t seemed quite as important as feeling…

Free.

“How can you be thriving?” my mom says fairly gently, but skeptically. “You’re unemployed.”

“I’m not…” I take a deep breath. “I’m choosing to explore a side of myself that’s not just about logic and facts. I would love your support on this.”

“But what happens after this… sabbatical?” my dad asks. “When you have to go back to real life?”

I literally bite my tongue to keep from retorting that my life right now isn’t any less real just because it looks different from theirs. But if I’m being honest, I know the question is one I’ll need to start dealing with. Lovely as these past few months have been, they’re temporary.

Eventually the vacation will end, and I’ll need to go back to work. To swallow my pride and go back to Nova as a lecturer. Or to try to find a new university to call home. But academia is a small world, and it’ll have gotten out that I was denied tenure. Any university that looks at me will be looking at a reject.

A semi-famous reject, but still. I’m not exactly holding my breath for Columbia or Princeton to come calling.

“Yeah. You can’t pretend to be a wizard forever, Miranda,” my brother Jamie chimes in with a wink.

My other brother, Brian, nods, and from the serious set of his mouth, I can tell he agrees with Jamie.

“I’m still a scientist. And you know what?” I snap. “Even if I weren’t , even if I didn’t want to be a scientist, would I be a lesser person? Any less of a daughter or sister?”

I’m not exactly sure where all of this is coming from—it just sort of spills out. And then keeps spilling.

I shift all of my attention to my parents. “When did I want to become an astronomer?”

My mother looks startled. “I don’t know, exactly. Weren’t you nine or so?”

“And was that before or after you sent me to science camp?”

“You loved science camp!”

“Yes, but was it my idea ?” I ask, because suddenly, I need to know.

Suddenly, it feels vital that I know.

To know whether this life I’ve been chasing, this aspiration of being a full professor, of dedicating myself to one university and one field of study for the rest of my life…

Is it my dream?

Or was it planted? Not with malicious intent, but simply because that’s what Reeds do.

“Sweetheart.” My dad’s voice is uncharacteristically gentle. “You’re brilliant. Whatever recent setbacks you’ve experienced, none of us have ever doubted that. We did our best to give you every opportunity. To foster that brilliance.”

“I know, Dad,” I say, setting my elbows on the table and rubbing my temples, suddenly exhausted. “I guess… I guess I just want to know if I’d still have a spot at this table if the IQ tests and my grades and my ambitions were different.”

“Well, of course.” My mother is affronted. “You’re family.”

The relief that I feel at this vanishes with her next words. “And as your family, we need to tell you that we’re concerned. To your father’s point, you’re far too intelligent to be squandering your time with fantasy. A sabbatical, fine. But you’re hurting your reputation, and ours with it.”

There it is.

“Ah,” I say, lightly. “So all of you are embarrassed by me.”

I look around the table. My sister-in-law Emily, the only nonacademic, nonscientist at the table, who let me have her natal chart, gives me a small smile and shakes her head, but the rest of them avoid eye contact.

“You’re just so high profile,” my brother Jamie says a little guiltily. “Or you were. Everyone’s wondering why you’re no longer on the morning shows, and if Jeopardy! dropped you.”

I shift uncomfortably, not wanting to admit even to myself how much it’s been on my mind that those invitations have dried up entirely.

“Wait.” I lift a hand, deflecting. “I thought you guys all hated that I did the public stuff.”

“We did,” Brian chimes in. “But now that you’re not doing it, people want to know why.”

“We just want to understand ,” my mother says, practically pleading. “And know what to tell people. About what your plan is.”

“Tell them that I’m figuring out how to be happy,” I say, pushing back from the table. “And that it’s not happening at this dinner table.”