Exploring the iceberg streets.

My niece Charlotte came up with a clever theory. Each word has two dimensions: its meaning and its history. The meaning is the tip of the iceberg while the history remains underwater. This structure can be applied to many things. Like a city. Each house, street, park, statue, tree, ravine, landmark has an existence in the present, the visible tip of the iceberg, and a context, an history and a life that usually remain unseen: underwater. When we walk in the city, or worst when we bike, or even worst when we drive or take the TTC, we only see the surface of the city. This heritage house is the space in which my 7-11 happened to be and I never noticed until it closed the amazing nineteen century features of the wall against which the shelf containing my smoothies used to be. This tree is where I locked my bike until I realized it was planted by a family mourning the lost of their dear son who didn't come back from World War. This acting school looked like every acting school until I realized it was an hospital before. This mall was the biggest warehouse of Canada. This store was a church. This Art Gallery was someone's house and that one was a power plant. This pub was a bank. This cafe was a distillery. This theatre was an ice storage facility. The city assumes a totally different face as you allow yourself to dive down deeper into the sea of time, far away from the surface of Appearances, closer to the Reality.