“Let me see if we have space,” the woman replied “Ah, yes, just one seat left.”
“Of course,” Elisabeth beamed as if she knew some inside secret.
“And who will the other traveling party be, please?” the agent inquired.
Elisabeth pointed at me. “This one,” she muttered.
“I beg your pardon?” I choked.
“You’re coming to Poughkeepsie, no?” Elisabeth asked, as if we’d discussed the whole thing.
“No! I have to be at work tomorrow. I only took three days off.”
“That work will get done without you,” she said matter-offactly.
“But I’ve got my car here in Boston,” I protested. “I can’t just leave it out there in the parking
lot.”
“Bill can come and get it and drive it up.
“But... I have no clothes to wear. I didn’t plan on being away so long.”
“There are stores in Poughkeepsie.”
“Elisabeth, I can’t do this! I can’t just get on a plane and go flying off somewhere.” My heart
was pounding, because that was exactly what I wanted to do.
“The woman needs your driver’s license,” she said, blinking heavily.
“But, Elisabeth...”
“You’re going to make me miss the plane.
I gave the woman my driver’s license. She handed me a ticket.
As Elisabeth hiked off to the gate, my voice trailed after her. “I have to call the office and tell
them I’m not going to be there
Elisabeth buried herself in some reading on the plane, barely saying ten words to me. But
when we got to the workshop site in Poughkeepsie, she presented me to the assembled
participants as “my new P.R. man.
I called home to tell my wife I’d been abducted and would be home on Friday. And for the
next two days I watched Elisabeth work. I saw people’s lives change right in front of me. I
saw old wounds being healed, old issues being resolved, old angers being released, old
beliefs being overcome.
At one point a woman sitting very near me in the process room “went up.” (Workshop staff
talk for someone who breaks into prolonged tears, or in some other way loses control of the
moment.) Elisabeth, with a slight gesture of her head, signaled me to take care of it.
I gently guided the weeping woman from the room and walked her to a small space which
had been set aside down the hall. I’d never done this kind of thing before, but Elisabeth had