Once, 33,000 Feet Above the Ground. A love story where time and distance lost all meaning

I froze. It felt impossible, too on-the-nose to be real. You couldn’t invent a more perfect coincidence. It was as if the backpack had been waiting all those years for this exact moment – waiting for me to grow into the person written on its front.

I picked it up, ran my hands over the fabric, tested the zippers. Perfect condition, like new. As if it had been preserved just for this journey.

Do you know what I believe? That the Universe is far wiser than we are. It knows our path long before we even sense it. It plants little clues, prepares the tools, opens the doors.

We can ignore the signs, argue with them, push against the current. But when we finally surrender and let life lead us, we discover that everything is already in place. The tickets buy themselves, the hotels appear at just the right moment, and in your storage closet sits a backpack with the exact words you need to see.

So I began to pack. Miami – heat, the ocean, light dresses. Orlando – still warm, but inland. New York – early March, anywhere between twenty-three and fifty-nine degrees, unpredictable and merciless.

How do you fit three climates into one backpack? How do you bring clothes for all seasons without exceeding the baggage limit for domestic flights?

And yet somehow, everything found its place. Each item seemed meant to be there. Nothing extra, nothing missing. Even my belongings seemed to know this trip was different.

I packed airy dresses for Miami, a warm coat for New York, comfortable shoes for long walks. I added a notebook – for recording impressions. A book I’d been meaning to read.

On the last evening before my flight, I sat on the floor next to my packed backpack and thought about how strange life can be. Six months earlier, I couldn’t have imagined I’d be flying alone to America. And now – tickets bought, clothes packed, visa in my passport.

What had changed? The circumstances were the same. The job the same, the friends the same, the fears still with me. Only one thing shifted: I had stopped waiting for permission. I stopped searching for excuses. I stopped inventing reasons why it couldn’t be done.

And the moment I did, it felt like the Universe clapped its hands and said: “Finally! We’ve been waiting for you.”

The “Tourist of America” backpack stood by the door, ready for adventure. And I sat beside it, feeling someone new stir awake inside me – someone braver, more curious, finally ready to step into the unknown.

Chapter 5. French Music in the Playlist

The universe speaks to us in the language of coincidences. The trouble is, most of the time we’re too busy planning to notice. But sometimes the signs grow so loud, so insistent, that ignoring them becomes impossible.

A week before my flight, something strange began to happen. My Spotify playlist – one I hardly ever curated – suddenly started throwing French music at me. First one song. Then another. Then an entire queue of recommendations.

I listened to those melodic, lilting compositions and felt a strange stirring inside. The French language flowed around my mind like warm water – unfamiliar, yet oddly comforting. The singers’ voices seemed to echo from somewhere far away, from another life I hadn’t lived yet, but that was already waiting for me.

Strange, I thought as I scrolled through the suggestions. Why now? Why French?

But there was no logical explanation. I was flying to America and yet the algorithm kept stubbornly shoving Paris in front of me.

At the same time, something else began to shift. My friends – those same people who only a month earlier had shrugged and said, “My vacation doesn’t line up,” – suddenly caught the travel fever.

“Maybe we should go somewhere too,” Lena mused when I told her about my ticket. “While you’re in the States, we don’t want to just sit around.”

“I really need to get an international card,” Marina added. “I’ve been putting it off, but now I feel like – it’s time.”

“My passport’s about to expire,” Katya sighed. “Maybe I should combine the practical with the pleasant?”

And then we remembered Kazakhstan. The closest destination where you could not only open international bank accounts for online purchases but also apply for a Schengen visa afterward. Everyone seemed convinced that having the “right” bank card could help with approval.

“Maybe it’s silly, but people say bank cards show financial stability,” Marina reasoned.

“And besides, it’ll just be a nice trip,” Lena added. “Almaty is beautiful.”

And suddenly everything fell into place as if by magic. The dates lined up, the tickets appeared, the hotel booked without a hitch.

I looked at this sudden burst of activity and realized: my decision had set off a chain reaction. As if I had given my friends permission to want more than their daily routines. As if my choice whispered to them, “It’s allowed. Allowed to dream. Allowed to act.”

“Can you imagine,” Katya laughed, “one trip hasn’t even started yet, and the second one is already planned!”

And she was right. While my American ticket sat quietly in my phone, waiting for its hour, we were already buying tickets in another direction. Life seemed to have picked up speed, as if time itself had compressed, and everything that once belonged to the category of “someday” suddenly became “right now.”

But what unsettled me most wasn’t Kazakhstan, or the tickets, or even the chain reaction of plans. It was the French music.

It played in my headphones as I folded my clothes into the suitcase. It hummed in the background while I studied maps of Miami. It accompanied me through those last few days before departure.

I tried to find logic in the algorithm, but there was none. I hadn’t searched for French artists. I hadn’t clicked on anything related to France. I had no plans of going there. And yet…

“Maybe it’s just a glitch in the system?” I thought, but my inner voice whispered something different. Something about how coincidences aren’t really coincidences. How signs appear for a reason.

Do you know the difference between logic and intuition? Logic explains what has already happened. Intuition senses what has yet to unfold.

Logic said: “You’re flying to America. What does France have to do with this? It’s just Spotify being weird.”

Intuition stayed silent – but each time another French song began, something inside me stirred. As if I were hearing the melody of a future that hadn’t arrived yet, but was already waiting nearby.

Sometimes life sends us signs long before we’re ready to interpret them. It whispers: “Prepare yourself. Everything is about to change.” But we only hear what we’re willing to hear.

The French music was one of those signs. Soft, insistent, enigmatic. Like the premonition of a miracle that hadn’t happened yet.

And tomorrow I would board a plane. My story would truly begin.

At thirty-three thousand feet.

To the sound of an entirely different kind of music.

Chapter 6. The Last Night in Moscow

There are nights that split your life into “before” and “after.” You only realize it later, looking back. In the moment, all you think is: “Tomorrow I fly.”

My backpack stood by the door, packed and ready. Tickets lived in my phone. Documents in a folder. Everything was done, everything checked twice. All that remained was to wait for morning and head to the airport.

But sleep would not come.

I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Outside, a February night, the silence of a sleeping city, the familiar glow of the streetlamp that for years had shone on this exact spot on the wall. Everything ordinary. Everything known.

And deliberately, I made no plans for what awaited me.

I had long since learned: expectations are the straight road to disappointment. When you expect something, reality almost never matches the picture in your head. But when you expect nothing, everything that happens can feel like a gift.

So I didn’t fantasize about what America would be like. I didn’t imagine how I’d feel. I didn’t build scenarios for my trip.

I simply thought: “I’ll go. I’ll see. Whatever happens – happens.”

But my body thought otherwise. My body anticipated.

Lying in the dark, I caught myself in strange thoughts. Images rose up on their own – bright, surprising, almost tangible. An airplane. The altitude. And me… not alone.

Where had this come from? I had never thought about sex on a plane. Never pictured what it would be like to feel someone’s breath at thirty-three thousand feet. And yet now, the fantasy unfolded on its own, like a film I hadn’t chosen but couldn’t turn off.

A private bed on board. Soft sheets. Turbulence rocking not only the metal bird, but also the bodies inside it. What would it be like to make love while clouds drifted beneath you and the air itself trembled with speed?

My hand slid down almost on its own. I closed my eyes and surrendered to this strange, intoxicating vision. My body responded to the images in my mind – bold, feverish, utterly new to me.

I had never been prone to erotic daydreams in flight. But something about this journey was awakening the fiery nature I had kept on a leash for so long – like my wavy hair, forced straight. Untamed, unrestrained, ready for the unknown.

Maybe it was a premonition. Maybe my body knew something my mind refused to admit.

I touched myself slowly, savoring every stroke, every wave of pleasure. In my mind, the images still flickered – an airplane, the height, the press of another’s hands on my skin, somewhere between earth and sky.

It was beautiful. It was liberating. It was about claiming my own sexuality without shame, without apology.

When the waves subsided, I lay in the dark and smiled. Tomorrow I would fly. But tonight, for the first time in a long while, I had allowed myself to be whole, without boundaries.

“What if it’s boring, being alone in America?” a thought flashed. “So what? I’ll be bored for two weeks and come home.”

“What if it’s scary?” – “Then I’ll handle it. Somehow I always do.”

“What if I don’t like it?” – “Then I’ll know what I don’t like. That’s useful too.”

I deliberately kept my expectations low. I didn’t let myself dream of how wonderful it might be. Because “wonderful” is different for everyone. But disappointment tastes bitter the same way to us all.

Better to be surprised by the good than crushed by what falls short.

I got up and walked through the apartment. Tomorrow it would be empty, while I would be somewhere over the ocean. The thought felt unreal – but not frightening.

Toward dawn, a strange calmness settled over me. Not anticipation. Not nerves. Just readiness. Like before an important task – you know you’ll do it, and you will.

I didn’t feel like a heroine heading into an adventure. I didn’t feel like I was doing something grand or destiny-defining.

I was simply using the visa that had sat in my passport for six years. Simply flying to the place I had long wanted to go. Finally daring, at last.

Maybe my strength lay exactly in that – not dramatizing, not turning the trip into a world-shaking event. Just buying tickets like you buy groceries. Packing a backpack like packing a gym bag.

Ordinary. Without unnecessary emotions.

I finished my tea and stepped into the shower. Just a few more hours until I left for the airport.

Standing under the warm water, I thought: tomorrow I’ll shower in another country. In a hostel where I know no one. In a room with three strangers.

It was a little frightening. But frightening doesn’t mean wrong. Frightening means you’ve stepped out of your comfort zone. And I had long known it was time to leave mine.

Not for transformation. Not for “finding myself.” Not for great revelations.

Simply because the comfort zone had become too small.

We often complicate simple things. We load them with meanings they don’t carry. We look for signs where there may be none.

Sometimes a ticket to another country is just a ticket to another country. Not fate. Not destiny. Not the call of your soul.

Simply a choice: I want to go there – so I will.

And only later, once it’s all over, do you realize – yes, that was fate. Destiny. The call of the soul.

But in that moment, standing under the shower on my last Moscow morning, I wasn’t thinking of any of that.

I was simply getting ready to fly.

No expectations. No plans. No premonitions.

With an empty heart, ready for anything to fill it.

And it turned out to be the best preparation of all.

Chapter 7. Sheremetyevo Airport

There are moments when reality finally shifts, when you realize the point of no return has been crossed. For me, that moment was Sheremetyevo Airport at six in the morning.

I stood in the departure hall with my Tourist of America backpack slung over my shoulders, staring at the screen. My flight glowed in white letters: Moscow – Casablanca – Miami. A few hours from now I would be flying over Europe. A few more, and I would be in America.

All around me, the ordinary life of an airport flowed on. People hurried past, dragging suitcases, exchanging words with those who came to see them off. And then I noticed something strange – I could hardly hear any English.

It startled me. I had been preparing myself for English, rehearsing phrases in my head, ready to catch familiar intonations. I expected to hear it everywhere.

Instead, French filled the air. A couple discussed their luggage, their merci and bon voyage echoing the playlist of French songs that had been haunting me all week. Behind them, a family spoke Arabic. Then a girl rattled away in Spanish on her phone. And, of course, Russian – so much Russian.

Strange, I thought. I’m flying to America, and yet there’s no English. As if the Universe is whispering again: Don’t rush. Your America is still ahead of you.

In the waiting area I felt something unusual. I had this almost irrepressible urge to talk to everyone around me. Not just idle chatter – I wanted to share. To tell them: I’m going to America!

It was a childish, almost indecent desire. Like a kid with a brand-new toy desperate to show it to the world. Look! I’ve got a ticket! I’m flying across the ocean! Alone!

I found myself scanning faces, hoping to catch someone’s eyes, to start a conversation. I wanted to ask: Where are you flying? Is it far? Are you going alone? Not out of curiosity, but from a need to share my joy, my decision, my courage.

Maybe this is how people in love feel – when they want to announce it to every passerby. Only I was in love with my own decision. With my freedom. With the fact that I had finally stopped waiting.

When boarding was announced, I stood and joined the line. A woman beside me struck up a conversation.

“Where are you flying?” I asked.

“To Canada, to see my daughter,” she smiled. “And you?”

“To America!” I said, with such pride it sounded as though I were announcing an Everest climb.

She laughed.

“That’s wonderful! You’ve set off quite far. Alone?”

“Yes, alone,” I nodded. “My first time traveling so far without company.”

“Good for you!” she said warmly. “I remember the first time I flew alone. I was terrified, but then I realized – it’s freedom.”

On the plane, it turned out we were seated next to each other. And then came another coincidence. She pulled a container of salad from her bag and offered it to me.

“Would you like some? I made it myself. Fresh vegetables.”

“Thank you!” I said, delighted. “Are you by chance vegetarian?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, surprised. “You too? How nice to meet a kindred spirit.”

“You know,” she added, handing me the salad, “I understand what it’s like to be in a foreign country and not know what you can eat. Please, take some.”

The salad was delicious – fresh vegetables, herbs, some special dressing. But more than the food, it was the care. That this stranger thought of me, shared with me, supported me.

“Thank you,” I said softly. “This is so unexpected, and so kind.”

“Oh, come now,” she waved it off. “We’re travelers. We look out for each other.”

A few rows ahead, a man traveling alone to Canada occasionally turned to join our conversation.

“My birthday’s coming up too,” he said. “I decided to give myself a gift – a trip to Canada.”

I froze. It couldn’t be. Here I was, surrounded by people with stories like mine.

“How old will you be?” I asked.

“Forty. And you?”

“Thirty.”

We looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Two people celebrating their birthdays alone, across the ocean, in countries they’d never been. Two people who didn’t wait for someone else to join them.

“So we’re not so strange after all,” he said.

“Apparently not,” I agreed.

His story was almost identical – visa ready, friends couldn’t go, so he decided to fly alone. He too had hesitated, almost backed out at the last moment.

“And then I thought,” he said, “if not now, when? And I bought the ticket.”

“That’s exactly my story,” I nodded. “Word for word.”

And there was something profoundly important in that exchange. I suddenly realized: I wasn’t alone in my doubts. Not alone in my fears. Not alone in my decision.

There are others who got tired of waiting for perfect conditions. Who understood that life doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It just moves. And either you move with it, or you stay behind.

Why does it matter so much to know we’re not alone in our choices? Because solitude in decision-making isn’t about who’s physically beside you. It’s about knowing your path isn’t an anomaly.

We fear doing what few others do. We fear seeming strange, reckless, too risky. And when we meet someone with a story like ours, it feels like confirmation: You’re not crazy. You just chose to live.

As the plane lifted off, I looked through the window. Below lay snowy Moscow, receding from view. Ahead – Casablanca, Miami, the unknown.

And beside me – fellow travelers, each of whom had once said their own quiet yes to the sky.

And it was beautiful.

We are not as alone in our choices as we think. We just rarely speak of them out loud.

Before we parted, the woman handed me her phone number – just in case, she said, worried I’d be all alone in America.

And that, too, felt like part of the Universe’s quiet care that had been accompanying me from the very beginning of this journey.

Chapter 8. Casablanca. The Man in Dark Glasses

We began our descent. The plane slipped slowly through the clouds, and I pressed against the window, searching for the land below. Under the wing spread sandy fields, dusty rooftops, narrow roads drawn like lines on a map. Casablanca did not greet me with brightness, but with something else – its own kind of certainty. A strange, almost theatrical stillness. As if time here moved differently – slower, heavier – inviting me to notice every detail of what was unfolding.

I sat in a hard plastic chair in the waiting area and called my mother. Her voice, warm as always, carried a hint of worry. I told her about the details of my route, all the while sneaking glances at the people around me, as if my intuition was searching for something. And then I saw him.

The man in dark, mirrored sunglasses. He stood slightly apart from the others, not fidgeting, not checking his phone the way everyone else did. He simply looked ahead. Where, I couldn’t tell.

Something in his silhouette, in the way he carried himself, drew the eye. Not in a showy or ostentatious way – more like a magnet, subtle but undeniable. Tall, but not imposing. Elegant, but unforced. He had that rare kind of confidence that never needs to be proved.

It felt almost staged: a lone figure cut away from the noise around him. I caught myself thinking he might be a musician. The kind who plays late-night sets, walks out of a club at four in the morning, drinks a glass of orange juice, and lingers on the sidewalk because the silence after music is music too.

I looked at him, let my gaze linger a little longer than politeness allowed, then turned back to my mother’s voice and soon forgot about him.

Around me, people spoke in languages I could barely distinguish – French, Arabic, Spanish. Hardly any English, though that was the language I had longed to hear. I had been preparing for America, tuning myself to its rhythm, and instead I found myself in a mosaic of cultures where my readiness suddenly felt premature.

The airport carried its own peculiar atmosphere of waiting. No one hurried, no one jostled the way they did in Moscow terminals. Time here stretched out like honey in the sun, giving space to feel each moment. And in that liminal space – where different languages, cultures, and destinies brushed against one another – I felt myself standing on the threshold of something important.

Casablanca was not just a layover. It was a pause before the next chapter, a place where the old version of me could stop and take a breath before stepping into the unknown. Here, between worlds, between languages, between who I had been and who I might yet become, the space itself seemed to offer me one last moment of silence.

Places like these are called liminal – threshold spaces. They are transitions, where the usual roles and masks lose their weight, where we become more open to new experiences. In airports, on trains, in stations, people often behave differently than they do in ordinary life. Here, it feels possible to strike up a conversation with a stranger, to share a story, to open yourself to encounters that everyday life would make unthinkable.

When boarding was announced, I felt my body tense automatically. In Moscow, this always meant the same thing: everyone stood up at once, shuffled into endless lines, rushed, pushed, scowled. But here – none of that. No one shoved or cut ahead. Each person took their place with the quiet dignity of someone who knows: there will be space enough, time enough, for everyone.

I settled into my seat, stowed my backpack, buckled my belt. The plane was nearly full, the last passengers filing down the aisle, looking for their places.

And then he sat down beside me, by the window.

The man in dark glasses.

Chapter 9. Switching Seats

The plane climbed higher, leaving Casablanca behind. I glanced at him and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“You got lucky with your seat.”

He looked up, a faint smile flickering across his face.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, because you’re by the window,” I explained. “It’s always magical to watch the world from up there.”

His answer caught me off guard.

“Want to switch?”

The offer was so natural, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” he nodded. “Doesn’t bother me.”

We stood awkwardly in the narrow aisle, shuffling past each other.

Settling into the window seat, I leaned toward the glass – and to my surprise, the window began to dim on its own. First it shimmered with a soft bluish glow, as if we’d slipped inside a video game or some futuristic film. For a moment it felt less like we were flying over the ocean and more like we were suspended in air, weightless.

Then the glass darkened completely, though beyond it the sun still blazed bright. The technology was astonishing – shielding us from the glare yet giving the illusion of gliding through outer space.

“Amazing,” I whispered, transfixed by the darkened oval.

When I turned back to thank him for giving me his seat, I noticed he was rearranging his things, pulling items from his backpack. And then he removed his dark sunglasses.

That was the moment I saw his eyes.

Brown, but not simply brown. They were layers of color impossible to pin down with a single word – honey, coffee, evening sunlight caught in amber. They carried warmth and weariness, tenderness and something more: the quiet depth of a man who had lived, and in whose gaze every experience had settled without being lost.