#CoronaSunsets

It happens to the best of us – life starts to stagnate and drag. When our day-to-day routine starts feeling more like a never-ending chore, it can be all too easy to forget that our lives require our active participation in order to stay fresh and exciting.

Falling in love with a place feels a lot like hunger, but also satisfaction. There is this constant desire for more; all you can think about is seeing more and embracing it. The adventure consumes you. Moving around and exploring will gratify you; creating an overall feeling of warmth and full-on glee, but only temporarily. Of course, once you fall in love, it becomes recurring: you constantly desire more of it, and the more you take in, the deeper you fall and the more you will wish to see. This is a basic psychological formula. 

I moved out to Toronto close to five years ago and living in the midst of the city’s chaos, I began to realize that I have been so consumed within my hustle juggling school and work that I began to feel un-inspired. A city that I was dying to move to, especially coming from a small town in Calgary, all of a sudden became dull. I guess it’s because I encompassed myself in the same neighbourhoods, same cafés, same restaurants and even possibly because I hung around the same people. Everything began to look the same.

Growing up in a family where my parents’ jobs at the time required constant re-location, I never stayed put in a city for more than a few years. Before I got the opportunity to get into a routine and make a place my "home", it was time to pack our bags and move. It’s safe to say till I was in grade six, I pretty much lived out of boxes and that mind-set of always experiencing a new adventure always stuck to me. Moving was a norm and starting from ground zero when things didn't pan out the way I wanted to in life was also a norm. However, times have changed and re-locating anytime soon is no longer an option (at least temporarily!)

Prior to an evening get-away with Corona, my friend Ash (@ashhobian) and I were sharing similar thoughts and feelings. He briefly mentioned how as photographers and content creators it's becoming harder and harder to find inspiration in places to create the type of content we want in Toronto. It's almost like we have to dig little bit deeper into the city to find inspiration and I couldn't agree more. It's one of the reasons why the both of us enjoy travelling when we get the chance to because it helps us get our creative juices flowing. However, sometimes you have to click the "zoom out" button and perhaps look at the city from a different perspective... an evening with Corona did just that. 

They say sometimes inspiration is found in your backyard. 

This past week Corona invited @ashhobian and I to an exclusive sailing excursion on Lake Ontario to catch the Summer Solstice on the water. The journey was filled with many hidden surprises. They rented a fleet of privately chartered sailboats. Each boat had approximately 10 people with most of us not knowing each other which made the journey even more exciting because we all got to bond over our love for well, beer! Cracking open a bottle of beer screams summer to me. There's something so satisfying of hearing that noise of the bottle poppin' and a fresh cut lime fizzing as you push it down the bottle. 

Shoes off, sails up, bottles open, music on, let the adventure begin. 

There is something so surreal about being on the water, looking at the city from a different perspective. Living in a concrete jungle surrounded by buildings on a regular, we often forget that we water is only a few feet away. If you think of it,  we turn to water for a sense of calm and clarity. We spend our vacations on the beach or at the lake; get exercise and enjoyment from water sports like sailing, and swimming; refresh ourselves with long showers and soothing baths, and often build our lives and homes around being near the water. 

3 bottles down... popping open my last one, I sat at the front-end of the boat snuggled in a blanket in good company of old friends and new and took in this breath-taking view.

Oh Corona,

 Thank you for spoiling me to bits with an experience of a lifetime, sparking my creativity and giving me a new perspective on the city. 

Cheers. 

Photos Captured by: Ash (@ashhobian) 

Disclaimer: This post was not sponsored. However Corona invited me out to experience this adventure with them. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.