Quest for sleep

I have had such trouble sleeping since our George died. The first month I had sedatives to help me sleep but I feared becoming dependent on them. I could fall asleep, but would wake often and end up online in the wee hours, trying to cope with my grief.

At the end of August I decided to apply to work one or two graveyard shifts a week at a local coffee shop (hilarious job for a tea drinker who can't stand the taste of coffee). My husband thought I'd lost my mind, and in truth, I probably have.

The manager at the store thought I was nuts. I applied four times and went in with my children one day to say, listen, yes I know I'm a writer and have done and do this other work but here's the deal. Our baby died. We moved shortly after, leaving our support network from the last nine years in another city. We are first-time homeowners and, erm, a little fiscally challenged. Since the economic crash last year my work has become lighter than I'd like and a little bit of reliable income would be nice. I don't want to have to do the daycare dance, nor do I wish to work and leave my children. But I do want to earn some reliable money and I am a hard worker. And I'm up at night anyway, so why not be with some other women and stay busy?

She was a little surprised but said, okay. And so I work once a week in customer service overnight with two or three other women. They're mostly mothers and they're all Punjabi. They have been so kind and didn't recoil in horror or avoid me when I answered their questions truthfully about why I took this very part-time job.

"A mother never forgets," said one of the bakers, who speaks very little English. She put her hand on my arm and looked at me so kindly when I shed a few tears. They asked - asked - to see photographs my baby and listened to details about his birth.

"He is such a pretty boy, so big," said one of the younger women, who isn't yet married or a mother herself. "Look at his hands! They're so big."

I cannot express how much I appreciated being able to show photographs and talk about George. And they still ask about him, about me, in the weeks since I started.

It's been fun in a weird way. Physical work is something I haven't done since high school and university days. My freelance, which ironically has now started to flood back in (that's Murphy, my maiden name for you), works my brain but not my body. But at the coffee shop we work hard, cleaning everything overnight. Everything. Mopping, wiping down, refilling, restocking. Serving the myriad nightowls who venture out for coffee while the rest of the world sleeps.

Not that mothering isn't physically demanding. I walk a lot with the children and our large one-year-old dog and we play in parks and my days are filled with endless wiping, mopping, cleaning, and more. But I needed that extra bit of complete exhaustion I guess, time in the wee hours to think and work and think and shed a few tears but keep moving without worrying about disturbing anyone. After my first graveyard shift I slept soundly for the first time since George's death. I needed that.

The encounters with customers are endlessly interesting studies of human nature. I'd forgotten how difficult and demanding people can be of service workers. I find it fascinating how people judge and treat people depending on how and when they meet; to meet me as a content writer for a website versus a journalist for a daily newspaper versus stay-at-home-mum versus counter gal clad in brown. Hmm. Some people make assumptions and treat you differently, but then so many people are able to relate just person to person. Working in a humble station you see people for who they really are, in the same way being a bereaved mother has shown me who in my life I can really count on for support when I need it.

Interesting moments. There are the rednecks in denial who hear my anglo voice and say, "I'm not racist but I'm so glad to finally talk to a real Canadian." Uh, huh. And then the hilarious turn of events when a Punjabi man expressed his dislike of having to deal with an English-speaking woman rather than the Punjabi women. I couldn't understand him but the women I worked with laughed and laughed and then filled me in because we'd just had several of the "I'm not racist" comments directed against them and now it was my turn. In all cases either side of cultural background the customers were male.

There are the people who are so kind. The regulars, some of whom after a time have asked me why I look so sad but have a happy voice. I share the story of George and they've heard my slightly crazy reason for working a graveyard shift with understanding.

Then there are the mean people, the ones I think must have some secret anti-random acts of kindness initiative going. People who rant and rave and belittle just because they feel they can, like one bonehead in his big truck who is a regular and obviously never wakes up on the right side of his bed let me say. It doesn't matter who gets the unlucky task of serving him his double-double, he's nasty. I'm toying with telling him why I'm working there so very part-time.

I may do that yet.

Then last night we had the car of heavily painted women come for their regular massive order. There are usually three or four of them together. They are rude, very nasty to the other women I work with if they feel they can't understand them (particularly the woman in the backseat, who no doubt tells herself, "I'm not a racist but"), and change their order at the last minute in some sort of mind-game of their own in which they either wish to feel some sense of power and status over lowly counter staff or they are simply trying to get free food. I'm not sure. Maybe a bit of both. It's maddening and mystifying.

Well, nasty car of badly made-up women met their match last night. They aggravated the fellow in line behind them, stalled to irritate him further, and then decided to push it even more by flipping him the bird and making other not-nice gestures to him. When they left, he abandoned his order and with squealing tires and blaring horn gave chase.

I wonder what transpired and if they still found themselves and the situation they created amusing.

The other reason this little night-time job has been good for me is because these wonderful women I work with make me laugh. It's fantastic to have conversations with translation from English to Punjabi and back as we share experiences from different backgrounds and find so much in common as women.

Don't ask me why, but I remembered after the car of antagonizing women made their hasty exit with madman in pursuit a funny moment from working in an ice cream parlour in high school. It had us all in stitches when I shared it and it's been, oh my, over 20 years since it happened.

I worked with my dear friend Chris, he of high drama and much flamboyance. He is the youngest of five and very mischievous then and now. We had a disgruntled and unreasonable man who felt entitled to berate high school students for not having - not having! - maple walnut ice cream among the 30 flavours. Because you know that leaving it out was our conscious decision to irritate and inconvenience him and not just something that happens when there are 48 flavours and only 30 spots.

"I'm going to talk to the manager about this!" the huge man roared at Chris, so angry his veins in his neck were popping. "I'll have you fired!"

"Go ahead," retorted Chris, his lanky teen frame so small against that of this incensed heavyweight, his eyes not betraying the whopper lie he was about to say with bravado and a smirky smile. "She's my Mum."

Chris has ended up a negotiations lawyer, no surprise. He's relentless, unafraid, hilarious, and no doubt still driving his adversaries crazy.

Tears to laughter and back again. Sleeplessness to fatigue and studying quirky characters and observing good and bad. Not where I thought I'd be this autumn. But even though my freelance work is picking up I'm going to stay very part-time at this place for a while. It's good for me.