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.
Previous
Running through Dublin
My father is a runner. For longer than my 23 years, his Asics have pounded countless miles of concrete and asphalt, and his dedication punctuated my childhood and youth. I don't think I quite ever understood it, his relationship with tearing muscles and breathless movement. I've tried a few times in my life to mimic it, to pace through his footsteps carved into the ground, to understand the allure, the addiction that needs daily feeding. And yet I come up short. There are perhaps one or two miraculous moments of understanding, where doubled over, gasping and elated, I think I might understand why he laces up six days a week. But then the feeling unravels, and I don't have the patience or the enthusiasm to chase it, so my runners begin to collect dust while I try to ignore them.
This spring they beckoned louder than I've ever heard them before. So I warily strap on tangerine Nikes, eight months old in their untouched box, and test the ground underfoot. It feels good, somehow different this time. Calmer, lighter. Perhaps it's just the shoes, with all their weight-defying, posture-correcting technology… but maybe not. So I take them out for a wee trial, gently, not asking them to push too hard, but to propel me over the cracks in Dublin's cement sidewalks, to lead me over the bumps and broken imperfections in the path.
As they lead me away from my front door and towards the canal, the ground falls gently away from my feet. Hugging the cycle lane and watching the silver mass of clouds overhead, the road weaves and curves, thankfully more distracting than endless straight lines. The sun occasionally peaks out from behind the blanketed sky, and with my eyes screwed up against the shimmering mass, I'm momentarily taken back by its potency. I reach the canal and press into the wind. It gathers strength and rolls down the length of water and pushes me back slightly. It forces my head up, and I look from the flashing stride of my shoes to the line of green banks and water stretching out before me. The wind ripples the water's surface and the feathers on countless swans. It tickles at the neck of a girl tossing bread from the boardwalk. It grazes my own, cooling my impatience and challenges me the way down. I race the activity of walkers, strollers, runners and bystanders until I duck under thick willow trees, drooping and drowning themselves in the now calm, nearly pedestrian water.
I turn towards town and the wind finds me again. This time at my back, it encourages me forward, and I join the current of buses, cyclists, suited men and baby buggies. The task is now to weave and navigate upstream through a battery of people refusing to move to the rhythm I pound out with my feet. The obstacles are fun, my feet darting and skipping past slow movers and around groups of tourists who gape at the architecture and historical importance of buildings. I bound through the crowds until I reach Stephen's Green, and once in the park my pace immediately drops. It's dark, with both sun and cloud hidden by the ceiling of trees, the leaves acting as a sound barrier and protecting the park with privacy from the activity of a working city. My feet calm and my legs stretch out, and I savour the feeling of long and steady strides. I do a few quiet loops of the park, the damp asphalt cooling the soles of my shoes up into my burning feet.
I eventually depart from the quiet paradise and direct myself home. The streets begin to widen and I lead myself into imposing Georgian suburbia. The gentle incline home punctuates itself with Georgian doors, and I run with a palate of colour flashing past me: tangerines, canaries, stop sign reds, thunderstorm purples. I begin to notice the cracks in these beautiful facades as I bop past, and I take in unkempt gardens, flaking paint, rusting fences, and the contradiction is stunning. The incline steepens and I can nearly taste my front door. Turning into our estate from the back, I pass the glass factory and nod to the men on their break with a quick 'howeya'.
Nearly there. I turn up a side street, taking the long way home. My dad always takes the long way home. I don't cut any corners. Dad never cuts corners. The wind nearly knocks me off my Nikes as I turn that last bend. Straight line home now, I can see the tree in my front garden. I look down, and my feet have taken off. Somehow, after everything, my body wants to move faster. I let it. As my lungs breath in fire, scraping for oxygen, my feet pound even faster. Legs are jelly. But then and suddenly… finished. I fly past my housemate's tiny compact car, and I realize I can begin to slow down. My wheezing is elated, my eyes tingling from the sensation of standing still.
I think I get it. I think I finally connect with the same sensation my father must. My legs are already itching to move again. So I've fallen in love with it, this activity I've watched my father stay faithful to for a quarter century. It forces a welcome vacancy in my mind while all my attention is forced into my body. I'm forced to feel something through my whole body, to endure it. Not to think, speculate or rationalize, but to feel.
And somehow it's the most intimate I've ever felt with this city, ever.
