Issue 003: Golden Hours and Ancient Dreams

On Toronto summers, Barcelona nights, and how Mallorca woke my sleeping soul...

Issue 003: A Dance of Seasons

Memory plays tricks with light. In Toronto, every memory I have seems steeped in gold – especially the summer ones. There's something about the way sunset spills across the city that makes even the most ordinary moment feel like magic. Last July, I found myself doing what I always do when the days grow long: sliding into my shortest shorts and most comfortable slippers, queuing up the perfect playlist (equal parts Lana Del Rey and The Neighbourhood), and setting out to wander.

Summer unfolds in Toronto like a permission slip written in sunlight, telling me to expand beyond the careful borders I've drawn around myself. I walk for hours through Cabbagetown, studying Victorian townhouses like they're stories waiting to be read. Each step, each turn down a new street feels like gathering pieces of magic for later. These wanderings aren't just walks – they're expeditions for inspiration, collecting moments that will bloom into ideas for Brand Tea Party, gathering fragments of stories that will become frameworks for building brand worlds.

A text lights up my phone: "Sugar Beach?" And just like that, I'm meeting a friend at the water's edge, our legs dangling over the harbour as we giggle about boys we once loved and dreams we're still chasing. These summer conversations, sticky with ice cream and possibility, plant seeds that will grow into something bigger. The city in summer holds all of me – past selves, present joys, future possibilities – in its golden light, giving me permission to dream wildly before autumn asks me to focus.

This is why summer belongs to Toronto. Because nowhere else have I found this particular quality of freedom, this specific shade of possibility. The long days feel like extra pages in a story I'm still writing, blank spaces waiting to be filled with sunset drives through quiet suburbs and conversations that meander like the streets themselves. Every moment becomes material for creation, every interaction a potential spark for something new.

Then autumn arrives, painting the city in impossible shades of amber and gold, and my wanderings take on a different rhythm. The same streets that witnessed my summer collecting now watch as I begin to weave those gathered moments into something real. Each walk becomes more intentional, more reflective. The trees in Riverdale Park mirror my own transformation – letting go of what's not essential, making space for what needs to grow. Fall in Toronto feels like nature's permission to turn inward, to sort through summer's gathered treasures and see what wants to become something more.

These autumn days have their own kind of magic. The crisp air brings clarity, helps me see which summer dreams have the strongest roots. My neighbourhood walks shift from wild exploration to gentle contemplation, each falling leaf a reminder that sometimes we need to let things go to let them grow. This is when summer's scattered inspirations begin to pattern themselves into programs, frameworks, new ways of building worlds. The city holds me differently now – not with summer's wild expansion, but with fall's grounding embrace, helping me transform all that golden-hour dreaming into something real.

But as much as Toronto owns my summers and anchors my autumns, Barcelona claimed my nights long ago. I remember one evening in particular, during my visit in fall 2022. Three bottles of wine deep, perched in some hidden bar in the Gothic Quarter, watching 4 AM arrive like an old friend. The conversation had turned philosophical hours ago – the way it always seems to in Barcelona, where even the stones seem to whisper about art and life and possibility.

Earlier that day, I'd been wandering those same Gothic streets, hunting down the best empanadas in the market, hopping between restaurants like a character in my own feast scene. But it was standing before Gaudí's work that undid me completely. I remember thinking, with the clarity that sometimes comes in foreign places: Why doesn't our whole world look like this? Why did the world decide dreams should be practical?

This is why winter belongs to Barcelona now. Because in the gentle Mediterranean cold, those 4 AM conversations become the soil where new ideas take root. The city's artistic soul offers the perfect environment for deep work – where client sessions unfold in rooms with centuries of stories in their walls, where every modernist curve reminds me that practicality and magic aren't opposites but partners in the dance of creation.

And then there's Mallorca, the place that brought my sleeping soul back to life.

After dreaming of the island for over a decade, I finally made it there last October. I wasn't prepared for how completely it would undo everything I thought I knew about myself. The winding roads leading to sunshine-soaked seas. The mountains carrying on their ancient love affair with the Mediterranean. Reading Greek mythology while walking through streets that felt older than time – suddenly I wasn't just reading about ancient worlds, I was part of their ongoing story.

At night, the sound of waves crashing against cliffs became a lullaby, singing to parts of me that had gone quiet in the hustle of building a business, of surviving. It was like my soul had been holding its breath for years, waiting for exactly this moment to exhale. This is where all the pieces come together – where ideas gathered in Toronto's summer light and deepened through Barcelona's winter nights finally bloom into their fullest form.

This is why Mallorca gets my springs. Because here, where mountains meet sea in ways that defy logic, transformation feels not just possible but inevitable. Client work deepens with the rhythm of the waves, brand worlds expand under the ancient sun, and every sunrise feels like the first one ever witnessed. The island's timeless wisdom reminds me that the best creations come from letting things unfold in their own perfect time.

So here's the dance I'm choreographing with time and place: Toronto summers for gathering light and planting dreams, for collecting moments that will become magic. The city's autumn for grounding and weaving, for transforming summer's wild inspiration into something real. Barcelona winters for diving deep into the work, for letting art and philosophy inform how we build worlds. And Mallorca springs for bringing it all to life, for letting ancient wisdom guide modern creation.

Because that's what I'm learning about following the golden thread – sometimes it leads you in a circle, connecting pieces of yourself you thought were separate. The summer-self who gathers inspiration through Toronto streets, the autumn-soul who weaves those gathered treasures into something real, the winter-spirit who shapes it further in Barcelona's ancient corridors, and the spring-heart who brings it all to bloom by Mediterranean light. They're all me, all true, all needed.

And maybe that's the real magic of building a life between worlds: not having to choose just one version of yourself, but creating space for all of them to dance together, each playing their perfect part in the endless cycle of dreaming and creating.

With warmth and anticipation,