the choir saga

Violist's dream came true to a certain extent, yesterday I exploded, though not in the ultra drama way that he expected it to be. I exploded in that BigMama, the music director of the choir I'm currently conducting (or, trying to conduct) pushed my buttons hard enough to make me actively seek out confrontation with her.

I'm quite a confrontation-averse person. To preserve mental health, I ventilate a lot, sometimes excessively. Also known as bitching. Something in me just snapped yesterday, when BigMama smsed something really passive aggressive, and I decided that I was not going to let all this unhappiness fester without knowing exactly what it was that was bothering her. So I smsed back to say that obviously she was unhappy about something I was doing, so maybe it was time for us to talk. She agreed.

I act rashly sometimes, and yesterday was one of those days when I seriously questioned the sanity of my behaviour. So today when we were supposed to talk, she brought the pastor in, which threw me off for a while because I didn't expect it, but I told her that we still needed to settle things between us even after that. She acquiesced. I suppose by that time I was confronting her avoidant behaviour instead of letting it pass and avoiding her as well.

So we talked, about roles, about direction of the choir. (she IS the music director after all), about the past few presentations that we did. She thought my choice of piece was too difficult, she thought I was going too fast and leaving too many people behind, she said (and sounded like she was representing the choir) that members were getting discouraged. I took it at face value at that time, however, found out later that it was probably an exaggeration. Well that was fine, until she started making attacks at my brother's character and spirituality and decided that he was not godly enough to serve as section leader. Instead, she recommended her husband, even though he isn't musically trained, can't (really) play the piano, and has no choral experience. By that time I was severely disturbed, and was feeling sicker and sicker at the minute, so it was good that someone came along to announce that we had to leave, so the 'discussion' ended.

I was glad that I escaped the fate of being mauled, or sat on.

(At this point, I have to say that what I'm doing now is not bitching so much as constructing my personal narrative of events. Don't worry, this has an okay ending, sort of. )

The severely disturbed state persisted through lunch. I was fortunate to have this really objective but sympathetic person who lost her appetite together with me but did wonders in moderating everything that I was coming out of my mouth at that point. (I want to be 30 quickly, but I'm not even 21 yet.)

By the time I got home, in my utterly zonked out state, I talked to my dad, who was mildly amused at the situation I was in. As he is equally conflict avoidant, he said that I should just let BigMama do what she wants, and leave. It was a fantastic idea, so I started drafting the email and all that jazz. My resignation letter was actually coming along nicely. (BigMama made it sound like I was causing tons of distress to the choir, so I figured that if I left, she would feel better if she regained control. )

Then Pastor's daughter smsed to say that BigMama was doing investigations of her own about some issue. (BigMama heard the choir singing when we were having our little discussion, and was trying to find out who it was that had the audacity to initiate the practice. I told her that we don't own the choir - their enthusiasm was commendable actually, so she didn't say anything, at that time.) So, while telling her how to respond to BigMama, I informed her that I was resigning and she sort of flipped and went to tell her parents, i.e. Pastor and his wife.

Both of them are fantastic crisis intervenors. Now I'm starting to feel bad about having caused all this trouble, but I suppose it is beneficial in the long run to get this problem sorted out. Well, Pastor sort of came up with a plan in the span of 3 smses, and his wife was doing all the crisis counselling and presenting the Other, Divine, point of view and everything sort of fell in place after that.

I don't know how this thing is going to be resolved eventually, will probably know by next week, but it feels as if I've just been pulled back from the brink of I-dunno-what. Divine intervention, I must say. Yesterday I could never have imagined how things would turn out today, could never have imagined it would turn out this well, with everything coming together like one big sudoku puzzle. God works in mysterious ways, really.

So many things happened today I'm still reeling from the shock. Well not really reeling, more like concussed. I still have an individual project presentation tomorrow, and have to resume my student life - at least before I go and teach in the evening.