This lesson begins with time — and my complicated relationship with it.

I live an itinerant working life. I might be in a different school every day, saying hellos and goodbyes, remembering key names, eating lunch with staff I may never see again. Children, thankfully, are forgiving if you forget their names.

Being a Londoner, it makes no sense to fight traffic when public transport exists. However, I also happen to be one of those people who likes to arrive at the airport six hours before the scheduled flight.

I hate being late. I hate the thought of people waiting for me — perhaps because I know how irritated I’d be if the roles were reversed. The idea that someone might have to cover for me because I was stuck in traffic used to fill me with dread. At one point, I was the first person willing to say out loud that Google Maps is a pile of shit

All of which is a long way of saying: I get anxious when things move slowly.

Some of this is probably the ADHD that runs in my family. I don’t cling to the label, though I admit I enjoy using it as an excuse when I go off track.

Online meetings only made this worse. I was constantly calculating time zones, arriving far too early, or occasionally missing things entirely. Add frequent international travel into the mix and, without discipline, I would have been all over the place.

Huzzah for putting a Saturn return to good use.

Slowing Down

Clearing time — and cutting back on habits that didn’t serve me — meant more money, more stability, and something I hadn’t anticipated: space to think.

And in that quiet, I realised I had been operating under a false assumption — that I had no one to think with.

That assumption didn’t survive scrutiny.

As I slowed down and stopped trying to stir things up, I discovered the people I needed most had been there all along. They understood the assignment.

The Home Team(s)

Some context matters here.

I’m mixed race, and my family turned moving locations into an art form. I could run around barefoot with my summers on the reservation eating berries and eating fish all summer and then wash my face in time for school in September. I could pack my belongings, ready for another house move, in less time it might take to pack a nutritious lunch. How many times had I swapped dorm rooms at university or hastily agreed to move across town because the central heating might be less expensive. Aside from where I live now, the longest I’d ever stayed anywhere was a shithole in South London.

When I moved to Walthamstow (15 years ago), I said I was never moving again. I was going to die in this flat.

That resolve was tested over the years by extended time abroad and close family living in Detroit. I was often torn between returning to my roots — where I’d stand out like a sore thumb — or staying in London, where I also stand out like a sore thumb. Fortunately, my Moon in Leo has learned to manage attention.

There were moments when an island in the Indian Ocean seemed deeply appealing. All of these options pointed toward a familiar pattern: living out my Gemini Ascendant by skimming the surface of places and relationships rather than committing fully to any of them.

Then I gave an author’s talk at Waterstones.

This isn’t a boast. It’s a fact. I gave a public talk on astrology at the UK’s premier bookseller in the centre of London. No one gets to diminish that or pretend it’s the same as signing a few books. A few people tried to claim they had also signed books at Waterstone’s. I was like, “Bitch please. I did an author’s talk”.

Who Actually Showed Up

In the weeks leading up to the event, I put enormous pressure on myself. August was full of extra gym sessions, nervous energy, and post-work stops at my local pub to “rehydrate” — with Diet Coke, not alcohol. I was fretting over my guest list. I wasn’t getting married or buried (although these days I don’t see the difference) so I knew my friends from far flung places might not want to come to an event that was only scheduled to last an hour.

I had been so busy thinking about the people who couldn’t come — friends overseas, colleagues with packed diaries — that I completely underestimated the people already around me. The ones who see me buying groceries, heading to the gym, turning up tired, turning up well, just getting on with things. They weren’t astrologers. They weren’t part of my professional bubble. They had seen me often enough that I assumed they wouldn’t be interested.

What I didn’t see coming was who could show up. That was my mistake.

Friends from Walthamstow — people who knew me long before books and lectures — saw the announcements on social media. They listened when I admitted I was nervous. They understood what the moment meant. Not only did they come to the event, they took me out to dinner the night before and toasted my success.

They came anyway. Not for the event, exactly, but for me. Not because I needed rescuing or reassurance, but because they wanted to be there. That distinction mattered more than I expected.

Belonging Without Chasing

There were other reminders throughout the year.

Keith, a fellow teacher, heard one of the Ojibwe stories I tell my classes — stories that connect me to my family in Detroit. He invited me to share them with his Wiccan coven. There I was, in central London, feeling strangely at home.

These were people who barely knew me — and they showed up anyway. Not for hype, but because quality work earns its place.

They helped me choose my dress, offered advice on the title and introduction, and had been there before and after the pandemic — the last people I saw before everything shut down and the first I saw when life resumed.

I may work in a different school every day, saying countless hellos and goodbyes, but I know where to find my people.

Home, Again

Later in the year, I returned to Detroit for my first Christmas there in 35 years. Coming “home” is something that always confused me. London is my home. I’ve lived in London far longer than I’ve lived anywhere else on the planet. I even got a little misty eyed when I did my little farewell lap on The Thames the night before I left for Detroit.

Detroit was mostly a business trip sandwiched with a trip to see my sister and nieces and nephews. No grand adventures. No danger. However, I noticed how my ears perked up every time I heard the word “Detroit”. My brain took some time to remember I was in Detroit, not London.

This was the first time I bothered with full travel insurance. I made sure my sister had the policy details. Not because I expected disaster — just because I didn’t fancy a half-million-dollar medical bill. After all, I’d recently been mistaken for a senior citizen and invited to a coffee morning.

Being back with family — people who have known me all my life and love me anyway — felt right. My sister kept asking if the noise bothered me while I tried to write (yes, I’m still finishing that Saturn book). I reminded her I spend my days surrounded by hundreds of children.

And then there was the puppy.

A chihuahua. Six ounces of concentrated chaos.

One morning, convinced I was alone, I wandered into the bathroom half-awake and felt something lick my feet — a moment of pure, irrational terror. I looked down to find a very pleased, very small dog wagging his tail.

Lesson delivered.

Home is alive, surprising, and very much present.

I was always where I needed to be. And I never had to leave home to find it again.

If I had to reduce my second Saturn return to its essentials, it would look something like this:

Lesson 10: Nobody needs me as much as I need me.
Self-preservation isn’t selfish — it’s foundational.

Lesson 9: Never throw the baby out with the bath water.
What’s worth keeping often just needs time, not replacement.

Lesson 8: Jupiter didn’t ask me to travel — yet.
Expansion doesn’t always require departure.

Lesson 7: Slay, don’t play.
If I show up, I show up properly.

Lesson 5: I’ll keep my clothes on.
I don’t need exposure to have substance.

Lesson 4: Let the work do its job.
Systems that last matter more than noise.

Lesson 3: Teaching is the legacy.
What survives me matters more than what centres me.

Lesson 2: Authority doesn’t need performance.
It arrives when you stop trying to manufacture it.

Lesson 1: Saturn deserves cake.
Because endurance, clarity, and acceptance are worth celebrating.