Meet the Sky

August 7, 2025

Last weekend, I was in Toronto helping behind the scenes at a music festival honoring the legendary Canadian rock band Rush. The festival took place exactly 10 years after Rush's final concert, and it raised funds for cancer research and support. For everyone there, it was a time both to honor the past and contribute to the future. I chatted with some of the organizers (because of course I did) and asked how they maintain the momentum after all these years. Their answers boiled down to: “Build outward. Keep connecting, one person at a time." I kept picturing an invisible structure growing wider and stronger, connection by connection: deliberate, hopeful, real. Not easy, but possible.

I was packing on the final day when I looked out my hotel window and saw a huge crane balanced at the top of an almost-built skyscraper, fifty stories high, maybe more. That looks impossible, I thought, but of course it wasn't; the proof is in the photo above. Someone planned it, committed to it, and rose to the challenge of meeting the sky, one story at a time.

Visible building and invisible building require the same ingredients: courage, effort, connection. These days, in a world where many feel a lack of agency, building something—anything—is an act of hope, and also one of defiance against forces that might try to pull you back. But if you tune your radar to notice things being made, you'll see them everywhere. When you see someone planning, creating, fixing, connecting, point it out to any young folks around you and remind them: People do hard things. Most important: Be on the lookout for any spark of this impulse in your kids, and name it when you see it.

Doing hard but possible things requires a kick-start now and then. So when you inevitably run out of gas, I suggest tuning to whatever soundtrack fuels you; sometimes, even one tiny line can keep you going. You will not be shocked to hear that my personal go-to push is from a Rush song called "Vital Signs":

Feel free to borrow it any time you need a little rush.

—Debra Ross, publisher

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