Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.“Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?” –
“Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif?” –
“Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.”“Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel’ ich mit dir;
Manch’ bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand.” –“Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?” –
“Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.” –“Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn,
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.” –“Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort?” –
“Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh’ es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau. –”“Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch’ ich Gewalt.” –
“Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!” –Dem Vater grauset’s, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Müh’ und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Erlkönig
So here’s Carl Weber and here’s the ocean and here’s a German poem about death snatching up children which is maybe the most on-the-nose metaphor for mentorship ever because isn’t that what the good ones do, the real ones, they snatch you up out of your comfortable bullshit existence and carry you off somewhere strange and necessary and you either die in the process or you become something you never imagined you could be, and either way you’re not the same person who started the ride…
I’m thinking about all the ways I fail the people who matter, not through malice but through the simple stupid fact of being human and scared and convinced I have more time than I do, more chances to get it right, more opportunities to show up and mean it and BE there not just physically there but actually PRESENT in the way that costs something, and Carl was one of those people who was always present, always paying attention, always taking me seriously when I was just some fucked up kid who didn’t know jack about anything but he looked at me like I was already the thing you might become…
What absolutely destroys me about people like Carl? They see the future and they don’t keep it to themselves like some kind of prophecy they’re hoarding, they just tell you straight up: You’re going to have a life in theater. Not maybe, not if you work hard enough, not if the stars align, just: this is what’s going to happen. And you think they’re crazy because you can’t see it, you’re too busy being young and stupid and terrified, but they’ve already watched it play out in their heads, they’ve seen the whole arc, and they’re willing to wait, to watch you flail and struggle and sometimes disappear for years at a time because they know…
Dinners that didn’t happen and performances he never saw and all the ways I wasn’t there when I should have been, when it would have mattered, when he could have known that what he gave me didn’t just disappear into the void but became something, became everything, became the through-line that holds when nothing else does…
Goethe knew something about fathers and sons and the things that take us in the night, but he didn’t write the poem about the ones who show you how to see, how to think, how to take the raw material of being alive and turn it into something that means something, even if what it means is just: I was here, you were here, we saw each other, and that seeing made all the difference.