Tackling Today’s Puzzle
Alright, let’s talk about today’s New York Times crossword. Settled in with my usual routine, pen in hand, ready to go. Mostly smooth sailing for the first pass, picking off the low-hanging fruit, you know how it is. Then I hit a bit of a wall in the upper section.
The clue was aim high. Simple enough, right? That’s what I thought too. My brain immediately went to words like ‘aspire’ or ‘strive’. Makes sense. But checking the boxes… nope, wrong number of letters. Okay, what else? Maybe ‘reach’? Still didn’t fit with the letters I already had penciled in from the crossing words.
I had a couple of letters confirmed: _ O A _ . Hmm. ‘Aim high’. Could it be more literal? Like, physically pointing something high? Doesn’t seem right for a crossword, usually they’re a bit more clever than that. I stared at _ O A _ for a good while. What goes ‘OA’ and means ‘aim high’?
Tried thinking about things that go high. Birds? Planes? Kites? That led me down the path of ‘fly high’. Still not quite fitting the clue ‘aim high’ directly, and definitely not fitting _ O A _.
Then I took a step back. Looked at the crossing clues again, re-read them just to be absolutely sure. Got another letter confirmed, the S at the start. S O A _ . Suddenly, it clicked. Like a lightbulb moment. It wasn’t about personal ambition, it was about movement! What aims high and moves upwards powerfully?
- Think eagles
- Think rockets
- Think your spirits when things go well!
SOAR. That was it. S-O-A-R. Fit perfectly. The clue was about the action itself, the literal aiming and going high. Felt good to finally figure that one out. It’s always satisfying when you untangle those tricky little wordplays. Moved on to the next section after that.
