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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Maud of Leaskdale
The unending rain made it easier to leave. As the last days in Dublin folded up neatly into my suitcase between summer dresses and weathered scripts, I looked through the clouds and rain and thought of an entire summer spent without the rain, the green, the ocean. The bad weather fell away somewhere over the Atlantic. When the plane touched down at Pearson, I saw nothing but blue sky and heat waves.
I unfurled my script from its nook in my luggage and pressed it out flat again. The words sunk into the warm summer air and pressed against my chest. As I sat there, half visitor, half returner, I began to imagine how Lucy Maud Montgomery felt, arriving cold and wet into Uxbridge, uncertain of her future in such strange, unfamiliar surroundings. When she looked on the town as she rode in on the train, did she notice the peaceful serenity I find waiting for me upon every return? When she passed the glimmering fields that frame our little town, did she notice the poetry in the sun racing over them on a lightly clouded day?
She knew the same roads as I do, the same trees and fields and houses. She endured the same weather, delighted in the same warmth, braved the same icy winds. The more I read of her life here, the more I recognized myself in her. So I began to wonder: did she possess the same fears that grasp me, did she dream the same ambitions?
As rehearsals begin and I walk the same floorboards she did, in her husband's old church, I can almost feel her sitting there, quiet and reserved, in her pew near the back. As my voice echoes through the empty hall, vowels bouncing off walls and ceilings, my mind distills and I can nearly see her there, sitting tall and pronounced, quietly nodding her head along with my words, her words. Her eyes follow my footsteps and her lips tug up into a smile when mine do.
I stand, dressed head to toe in long skirt and high-necked blouse, and step softly into her house, through her beloved parlour and up the stairs to the bedrooms looming above. I am the one who feels like a ghost, intruding on a life so perfectly and carefully preserved. But it is a life preserved not in furniture as much as words, words carefully selected and fastened together, strung into lines and bound into journals. They preserve the essence of her soul, of her being. And diving into them reveals an honest part of her, largely unknown by our eager masses.
As opening night looms closer and closer up over me, I tremble with excitement over the possibility of sharing this stunning woman's life with eager listening ears. I cannot wait for you to know her, as I know her.
As you’ll learn in Roger Varley’s interview on page 3, Jennifer is starring as Maud in a play being staged all summer long in Leaskdale. See page 9 for the details on how to get tickets.
