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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Lessons in the rain
…And the winter downpour has begun.
When the Romans finally arrived to conquer Ireland, it's said when they discovered the hideous amount of rain they named the country Hibernia (land of winter), refused to settle it and turned around. They hauled themselves back to Britain and left the rain to the Celts. I know I've already been on about the resilience of the Irish, but I don't know any other country that could bear the weight of a crippling recession along with this bleak, black wall of a rain that will persist for months, and carry it all with such humour and cynical grace.
As the rain courses down my sitting room window and the sun begins to set at an ungodly hour, my mind instinctively settles into a pensive melancholy. Winter just does that, I suppose. I let my thoughts wander this morning, watching the pellets of rain gather and stream down the glass. They wandered through the lists stacked in my head, past the Christmas carols I've had stuck in there for a good week, beyond lines from my play I've been cramming in and memorizing, and finally rested on Diarmuid.
One of my dear friends, Diarmuid is a man that has earned my respect in spades. This summer he quit his very comfortable banking job to go back to theatre school. With no help from family or friends, let alone the government, he left a dependable, safe life in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the 1930's. To my delight and admiration, he told me he was walking away from a cocoon that he created for himself, which he hated, “in order to live”.
…In order to live. Wow. I know I have a great deal of grit in me, but every time I see him fighting just to keep afloat, I know I have plenty to learn about scrap and tenacity. That man is in a weight class all his own. Diarmuid has the cynical grace I'm talking about. He's not got bright, shining eyes, rosy cheeks or an angelic disposition. He's sharp tongued, quick witted and a self-proclaimed pessimist. Yet he takes discouragement and predictions of defeat on the chin, and with a chorus of people chanting “fool” behind him, he quietly continues to chase his dream with surefooted determination and integrity.
I admire his resolve. As I work through rehearsals in our creative little basement space, I hear his voice and his quiet declaration “…in order to live”. The work I'm doing right now won't change the world, but it's keeping me alive. Because that's what art does. It keeps you alive when the rest of your life starts to disintegrate. When you feel defeated and minute, art reminds you of the spectacular endurance and grit of man. It reminds you how to laugh and inspires you to be better. It's an escape that illuminates what is truly important.
Within this little show I'm working on, there is art to be found and shared. Creatively I feel anemic, but I'm getting stronger each day I have with the script. My director is a true demiurge, a well of ideas and possibilities. There's a light joviality in the rehearsal space, and the work just flows. It's the sunbeam that permeates my hectic week.
The longer I live here, the more I realize what Ireland is teaching me. I came here to learn, and Ireland is instilling me with life lessons, ones that it knows well: to fight for the things you know are worth it, and fight hard. Be ferocious, passionate, stubborn, and hold on to your sense of humour for dear life. It's the only thing that will get you through. And when the sun breaks though the clouds to reveal the crystal blue sky behind, get yourself outside, look upwards and take a breath of the stunning winter air. Because I tell you, the greenery from all the rain sparkles in the sun like emeralds.
