6:30 Club

I heading out at an earlier time than normal.

It's dark out and also cold. I was excited to wear all of my layers of warm clothes until I remembered my job's new building is super warm.

So it's just me with what I call the 6:30Club.

The 6:30 club is the selection of folks in my neighborhood who leave at 6:30am to go to work. In my previous job, I left work work every day at 6:30 am. Usually, it's pretty routine and alone, though you can see a few others walking their dogs or heading out to work as well, this is not the 6:30 Club. The 6:30 Club only meets in the winter months. You can see when the meeting convenes by the sound of multiple people starting their cars, then getting out and scraping the ice of off their windshields. We don't talk to each other, we don't know each other but we all know that the ice must come off the windows. If you observe closely, you can see each individual rationalize at what point is 'enough' ice removed from the car, knowing that the defroster will eventually be able to melt the ice.

I am not quite early enough to see the 6:30 Club, but I will be joining the 7:05 Club. Usually, I get to be a part of the 8:44 Club, which is a great club because the sun is up so even if I have to scrape my windows, it's not in the dark and the odds of the sun helping melt the ice have increased. So the 8:44 Club isn't even a club, we don't need each other. Not in the way that the 6:30 Club needs each other because knowing that you are not alone in the dark, negative single digits of the morning helps you get up to exist in the dark negative single digits of the morning.