Laurie Morris is communications director at the University of St. Michael’s College and the proud owner of a Conklin Carnival t-shirt. She holds a B.A. in English from UofT and a certificate in Corporate Social Responsibility from St. Michael’s.
Do You Want to Go Faster?!?!?
In the five months since most of the country went into collective lockdown, there have been countless memes and chin-stroking think pieces about the effect of COVID-19 on our perception of the passage of time. March went by in a millisecond, April lasted 1100 days and now, according to the Gregorian calendar at least, the end of summer is upon us. But how will we know the summer’s over if we can’t go to the Ex?
For as long as I can remember, going to the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto has been a welcome but bittersweet segue between seasons. Even when I lived in New York, I’d factor the dates into my vacation calendar. It would never be the primary reason for a return visit to Toronto, but it never fell off the radar either. The CNE was something that kept me strangely anchored to “home.”
I’m sure most of us have a mental reel of Exhibition highlights. For me, it includes Holly Hobby doll prizes, huge boxes of Double Bubble gum (100 pieces at once!!) and the Polar Express guy who keeps asking if you want to go faster. And, of course, the thrill of discovery in the “oddities and novelty” factor—the invisible dog, Labatt Blue tube socks and, more recently, a larger-than-life sculpture of Justin Trudeau made entirely of butter.
But when it comes down to it, the lure of the CNE (at least for me) was less about what actually happened there and more about the promise of one last chance to exhaust the potential of summer, complete with corn dogs and top hats emblazoned with glitter. A trip to the Ex offered an opportunity to embrace simple, silly pleasures and a brief distraction from the more serious business of “getting down to business” in the Fall.
COVID-19 has challenged us in unexpected ways. Among other things, it’s called us to be flexible, patient and quick to realign expectations to find the best path forward—arguably some of the same skills required to scale the shifting steps of the Fun House.
But as much as the virus has us taught us about masking, distancing and cleaning, it’s also given us the opportunity to be creative and impressively resilient. Not nearly as satisfying as corn dogs, but important to recognize nonetheless. Many of the usual milestones and markers that we’ve depended on to bridge transitions and provide a sense of renewal don’t work well in a time of social distance and sanitization.
So this year, we have to draw on lessons learned from CNEs past and COVID present. As we head into Fall, give yourself permission to embrace silly, simple pleasures and to delight in the smallest things. The gates of the CNE are temporarily closed but we can still make the trip.
(Contributor’s note: No invisible dogs were harmed in the making of this blog post.)
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