Gemini's Secret Weapon

Gemini has a reputation for being quick.

Quick-witted.
Quick-moving.
Quick to learn.
Quick to change.

But I think Gemini's greatest gift isn't intelligence.

It's curiosity.

Curiosity is what keeps Gemini young.

Not necessarily young in years, but young in spirit.

This Gemini season gave me three wonderful reminders of that truth as I celebrated the birthdays of my husband, Harrison ("H-Town"), my mother-in-law, Barbara ("Babs"), and my close friend, Brooke ("Brooklyn Street").

Come to think of it, why do they all have nicknames?

Probably because they're playful people who practically invite being nicknamed.

Turning 50

This year Harrison finally caught up to me—four and a half years later—and celebrated his 50th birthday.

He wasn't especially thrilled about it.

He's always been a serious athlete. When we met, he could run 5 kilometres in under 18 minutes, and not long after we were married, he cycled across Africa.

I suspect crossing into the 50+ category made him wonder if his body's fastest days were behind him.

For the record, I don't see what the fuss is. I still think he's very hot.

I've watched endurance become more important than speed, and I think that's a pretty good bargain.

More importantly, I don't think our relationship with our bodies is meant to stay the same forever.

As another Harrison once said—Harrison Ford, that is—you work out in your younger years to look good.

You work out in your later years to stay capable.

Those are two very different goals.

Youth rewards speed.

Age rewards endurance.

50 ⭐ The Apex of Youth

To celebrate his birthday, I took Harrison to one of our favourite places: Mont Tremblant.

Hiking is about the only form of cardio I genuinely enjoy, so the dog and I happily followed him up the mountain.

That weekend a Spartan race was taking place.

Some competitors were tackling an astonishing 50-kilometre course.

What struck me wasn't how young everyone looked.

It was how many people didn't.

Many appeared to be in their forties and fifties.

Later I discovered the average Spartan competitor is around 35, but endurance sports have long attracted older athletes.

That makes sense.

While speed and explosive power gradually decline with age, endurance relies on patience, pacing, resilience, and an ability to tolerate discomfort—qualities that often deepen over time.

The body changes.

But so does the mind.

Psychological resilience often peaks much later than physical speed.

Perhaps aging isn't simply about what we lose.

It's also about what we gain.

Gemini Never Really Gets Old

That brings me to Babs.

This year we celebrated both her birthday and her Uranus Return.

(If you're wondering how old that makes her... you'll have to do the math yourselves. I'm not putting it in writing.)

Babs has always embodied what I think of as Gemini's Peter Pan quality.

Not an unwillingness to grow up.

An unwillingness to grow old.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that aging is influenced as much by attitude as chronology.

The people who remain curious, engaged, playful, and willing to learn seem to carry an unmistakable sparkle.

They're still participating in life instead of simply watching it pass by.

Gemini seems to understand this instinctively.

Curiosity keeps the world alive.

It keeps people interesting.

And perhaps, in some small way, it keeps us young.

Brooklyn Street

Then there's Brooke.

If Babs reminds me that Gemini stays young, Brooklyn reminds me why people love talking to Geminis in the first place.

She has one of the driest wits of anyone I know.

Sometimes she doesn't even have to say anything. She'll catch my eye and give me the slightest sideways glance—an expression that somehow says everything—and I'm instantly dying.

More than that, she has an extraordinary ability to follow a conversation wherever it goes.

Anyone who knows me knows my stories don't always travel in a straight line. They meander, then double back and collect little side roads before eventually arriving at the point.

Brooklyn somehow seems to understand exactly where I'm going while I'm still on my way there. She follows every twist without missing a beat, offering little affirming observations that make me feel completely understood.

It's a rare gift.

I worked with Brooklyn for years, and one of my favourite memories is of the two of us setting up dining rooms together. We hardly talked because we didn't need to. There was an easy comfort in the silence, each of us quietly focused on what needed to be done.

I've always admired that about her.

When she's working, she has an effortless ability to settle into the task at hand. Calm, capable and completely present, she moves through the work without fuss.

Those qualities may not be the first things people think of when they think about Gemini.

But perhaps they should.

Because curiosity isn't just about collecting information.

It's about paying attention: to ideas, to people, to conversations.

Paying attention to all the surprising places they might lead.

Gemini's Secret Weapon

So while I won't tell you exactly how many candles were on Babs' cake this year, I'll leave you with this thought.

A youthful state of mind may be the closest thing we've got to a fountain of youth.

If Gemini has a superpower, it isn't simply being clever.

It's the willingness to stay curious—about life, about other people, and about ourselves—long after we've stopped needing to prove anything.

Maybe that's Gemini's real secret weapon.