If you were wondering, this is what Garrison looks like in reality

I went on a walk after a work meeting, and was close enough to the neighbourhood where Wonscotonach takes place that I decided to stop by the Garrison Creek monument. Given that some folks don't live in Toronto, this is some context to what one of the largest monuments to a buried creek in the city looks like.

But so many don't have anything- no moniker, no references, no name. I searched for a long time to what were the original names of the rivers and creeks that were being referenced in the game. For folks wondering, Wonscotonach is the anglo version of the Don River's Anishnaabemowin name, which Don is based off of.  It's also referenced in Ashbridge's story- as even for the hours I spent researching, the favours I called for from folks who might know- none of us could find out what Ashbridge creek was named before the Ashbridge family bought the land it was on. There are hundreds of creeks and streams that were here, and now there are... 5-ish? rivers left.

I've spent a lot of the past few days talking to friends and wondering about this project. As I mention in the game; the thought of this haunts me. I think of ideas and half baked projects over the past 12 years in which this recurring theming keeps coming up; walking through alleyways and wondering on the haunting idea of what is buried beneath me. Of places between here and now and the fractal nature of memory and experience.

It has been fascinating to hear from folks both who live in and have never been to Toronto about the game. The alley this takes place in exists, you can go there. It is grounded in a specific reality, yet focuses on the unreality of that place. I dunno, it's a concept I like. So much of what I did felt like turning to the camera and saying "this is what this is about" in another language without subtitles, revealing the plot to those who could speak it too.

Toronto gets so rarely to be itself. You can see it in films, TV shows, advertisements as New York City, LA, Chicago, Gothom; it's a nowhere place in almost all media. A TTC bus rolls by down the New York City street, our iconic garbage cans in backdrops as character walk through The Windy City, Kick-Ass gets beat outside of the donut shop I walked by in middle school. If you've ever met a Canadian and watched media together, you know we will always point out EVERYTHING Canadian. Torontonians do the same; I think the only media I can think of that has broken out in anyway about Toronto is Scott Pilgrim VS The World. Watching media with us can be insufferable because everything is Toronto, and yet nothing is Toronto.

You don't have to care about my city. In fact, in so many ways I ask you not to.

You understand the feeling of unbelonging that comes when no one looks at you as you; talking to your parents about your sibling who's grades are always better and being told you're not good enough- knowing you're being compared to an ex you've never met but is held as a spectre over your life: the awkward dread of being held to a standard you never agreed to but must be. Catching your own eye in the mirror and having to turn away in shame because you might have to actually look at yourself.

When I walk through an alley as I have hundreds of times, to go to a corroded brass monument to something that no longer exists, listening to music my friends have made about the city we share- I think about how this strange crumpled note passed between hands as the teacher turns their back might become a love letter from me to the city I live in.

But in all of this, I do ask that maybe you look at the place you are with love. When the wind blows and the bus rolls by, to admire it. To listen to the birds sing and the dripping of rain and wonder if those are eyes peaking out from the storm drains.

Oh- and for those of you who've already met Garrison they say hi. To those who haven't, they say see you again soon.