Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky…. or something like that.

It still gets me every time I think about it. The sheer, staggering privilege of it.

I walk onto a metal tube. I sit. I wait. And then… I’m elsewhere. Another continent unfolds beneath the wing. The science of it is a miracle. The access to it is a gift I try never to take for granted.

As I type this, I’m suspended between Vancouver and Hong Kong. The world below is a silent sea of cotton-balled clouds. I find myself wondering: Is this the view my parents have now, wherever they are? Just… chilling, on some eternal, sun-drenched ledge? The thought doesn’t bring sadness today. It brings a quiet, expansive closeness.

It’s peaceful up here.

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A brutal, beautiful, temporary pause from the noise. The news cycle, the media spin, the health updates, the low-grade hum of collective anxiety, all of it, left at 35,000 feet. I am, for these fourteen hours, unreachable.

My phone is in airplane mode. The world is on mute.

And I have to ask: why is that state so desperately, deeply delicious?

Did I architect a life that requires my attention to splinter in seven directions at once? Or am I just playing a perpetual game of emotional Frogger, dodging not cars, but bad news and heartbreak for myself and the people I love?

Whatever the reason, the escape hatch is this: a pressurized cabin, a window seat, and the enforced solitude of a long-haul flight.

There is nothing I can do here but be present.

And “presence” is my word for the year: To be where my feet are. To slow the hell down and embrace life as it is, not as I fear it might become. (Spoiler: It’s hard. So hard.)

So here’s my in-flight ritual, this time: I binged season one of Shameless (Shameless, fittingly, is my current co-pilot). I meditate. I do word searches (an app, a physical book, I’m committed). I wait for the melatonin to kick in (the natural choice, because NyQuil makes me a confused, groggy mess). I eat the Biscoff cookies because, obviously. I stand up and move my body. Stretch. Make small chat with whoever is around me.

And sometimes, I write. Like now.

For these hours, I am not a CEO, a strategist, a daughter, a coach or a caregiver. I am a woman in seat 14K, up above the world so high (with a slight melatonin buzz and buttery cookie crumbs on her tray table), practicing what I preach: presence.

This is my reminder to you, wherever you are:

Your peace is waiting. It might be on the ground, above the clouds, under the water, or deep within the fortress of your own heart. But it’s there.

You just have to slow down enough to find it. You have to build, or seize, your own version of being unreachable.

The gratitude I feel in this moment is immense. It’s a tidal wave.

Gratitude for the life I get to live, in quiet honour of those who cannot.

For the small, daily victories over grief and the management of intrusive thoughts.

And for you. For this community. For the sacred act of you reading these words, which completes the circuit and brings them to life.

Now, tell me: Where do you find your “unreachable” peace? Comment below because your answer may influence someone else’s peace.

Let’s navigate your grief together,

XX Blair

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