Jennifer Carroll is a 21 year old actor and writer. She first began writing for the Uxbridge Cosmos in 2007 when she had the opportunity to share her experiences as a Canadian ambassador for an international conference for women in Dubai. At the beginning of 2008, she moved to Ireland to pursue a career in theatre and film. Far From Home is her monthly account on living and working in Dublin.
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"We've not seen weathr like this in 27 years
Never underestimate good infrastructure.
Ireland is a reasonably mild country. It took the better part of my first year here to adjust to the hazy transitions between seasons. These transitions aren't like the changes at home. You can't feel spring in your bones, there isn't one late, hot evening that heralds in summer. Fall doesn't snap in one morning with a crisp change in colour in the trees, winter doesn't swoop in with a sudden freeze. One season meanders into the next, a hazy rain lacing each quarter of the year. Summer is sometimes only distinguishable from winter by a slightly warmer thermometer reading.
However, New Year’s in Dublin welcomed 2010 with a thick, heavy, quiet snowfall. The kind of snowfall every Canadian child prays for on Christmas Eve, the kind that makes the world look clean and peaceful. It snowed heavily for hours, masking the grey cobblestone in a thick white blanket. The novelty was stunning, delighting everyone in the city. What a perfect touch to the excitement of New Year’s Eve! However, as all the taxis quickly disappeared off the streets and the roads became a skating rink for girls in sparkly dresses and impossibly high heels, the snow became a little less romantic.
As the days progressed so did the snow, relentlessly falling far faster than Dublin City Council could keep up. They ran out of salt less than halfway through the blitz. You couldn't even buy table salt at the shop. Roads, footpaths, driveways couldn't be gritted. Snow left on every road was driven over until it became compact ice. Buses were pulling over in the middle of the day, interrupting their routes and leaving their patrons to walk, which was only marginally safer than driving. Cars were abandoned on the side of the road and in the depths of carparks. Water mains froze throughout the country, and people scared of the pipes in their houses bursting kept water running 24 hours a day, draining reserves down to nothing. In a country where it does nothing but rain, we had water rationed for a week. The economy froze for two weeks, brought to its already buckling knees. Dublin was ravaged by an amount of snow no Canadian would even blink at. Four tiny inches wrecked Dublin. It hadn't seen weather like this in 27 years.
The standstill made me realize the importance of being ready for something. Half of the battle against uncertainty and clumsy disaster is preparation and readiness. Harking back to the aul' acting (as I try to do from time to time), the sentiment isn't lost. It's easy to slip into complacency, to fill your day with benign trivialities. Laziness is the actor's worst enemy, and while trivial activities can be fun, they don't serve me as an actor. We may seem to be self involved and egocentric artists, but we do it because our bodies, minds and imaginations are our only instruments. It would be beyond foolish not to be constantly examining them, preening them and keeping them in generally good shape.
The rush of Christmas and the mental pace I was keeping demanded a wee bit of enjoyment in the distractions in my life for a few weeks. But as the weather has slipped back into grayness and rain, I'm hoping not to lose the lesson that the snow so starkly illuminated.
As I mature both as a professional and a young woman, I realize the commitment I owe to my craft. I don't want to run out of salt or have to abandon any figurative cars. I'm learning how far my dreams and ideals get me, and it's not far enough. The rest is discipline and cold hard work. With auditions for national theatres and short films starting to fill my days, I don't want to rely on chance or fate or luck or anything else beyond my control. The clarity in this constant but slowly emerging realization is comforting. I know there's no insurance in art. I want to instill good infrastructure around my ideals - it's the only way to keep them standing for the rest of my career. No amount of snow, rain, rejection or failure will break me down.
