It’s stuff like this that makes me an existentialist. (From February 2nd, 2011)

Last night’s blizzard was probably the most surreal thing I may have ever experienced. To anyone who didn’t at least step outside, you missed out. My roommate Lauren tells me around 12:30 last night, “Matt and I are going outside to play in the snow. You’re welcome to join us!” Initially, I was gonna turn the invite down. I mean, it was a blizzard…
And then, I realized it’s a fucking blizzard! Who would turn down something like that? So we got bundled and headed to Matt's room. Matt was microwaving water to put in a thermos. Apparently he had much bigger plans for us than just playing in the snow.
“We’re walking to the lake. You guys cool with that?” he said. I was waiting until we got outside to determine whether or not I’d be up for it, but it sounded like quite the undertaking.

Campus Map for Reference

While it may not seem very far, and under normal circumstances it isn’t, surrounded by flashes of lightning, claps of thunder, and a whirlwind of ice, it feels like miles. We walked through the lobby of the dorms, hearing warnings like, “Don’t go out there!” “Don’t do it!” and “Are you crazy?” From inside we could see the wind doing some damage on the trees right out front, and honestly, it was pretty intimidating. But we had come this far…
We get outside, and it’s surprisingly warm. The wind was rough, but it was probably about 30 degrees outside— very tolerable. There wasn’t a soul on the walkways or in the streets. We didn’t see a single car, parked or driving. The snow wasn’t very deep at this point, maybe 4 inches or so. We walked through the street because it was the closest thing to a path we could find. Keep in mind, usually there are city buses running, college students mingling, police patrolling, etc. The best way it can be described is like the end of the world, and we were the last three people roaming around. We pushed against the wind for a little while, and then huddled between buildings to catch a break. “You sure you wanna go all the way to lake,” Matt asked. And I nodded. Well, we made it that far…
It was impossible to see more than 100 ft in front of us at any given time. We couldn’t see the houses on either side of the street or campus buildings that usually fill the scene. Instead we were staring into a white abyss, our path laid out by street lamps. The seven blocks or so to the lake was a breeze, but once we hit Lincoln Memorial Dr. our experience changed quite a bit. This wind was forcing us towards the lake as if we were being sucked in. Lake Michigan is expansive and typically would be in plain sight in all its ocean-like glory, but last night, maybe 200 ft from it, I could only hear it.

Lake normally looks like this

I saw this.

We followed street lamps and trees until we saw the rocks of the lake shore. We were standing at the shore and hadn’t a clue a lake was in front of us. Staring straight ahead, not a thing was visible. Someone could have been holding a blank white sheet of paper in front of my face, because that’s all I saw. Gazing into absolute nothingness filled me with the most remarkable feeling. I made a comment about how annoyed I was that our senses rely on light, because I wondered what we were truly looking at. And Matt said, “Well, not all our senses; can’t you hear that?” So we all shut up and stood on these rocks along the shore, letting ice crystals hit our faces and collect on our eye lashes, probably the coldest we’ve ever been in our lives, but not noticing because the roar of the waves completely overwhelmed any other sensory perceptions.
It took me a lot to step away from that, a feeling better than any high I can imagine.
The trip back, while eventful, isn’t nearly as fun to recollect. The brutal wind pushed us back faster than we could run forward. Realizing we were getting nowhere, we decided to head up the steep hill between Lake Dr. and Lincoln Memorial (The map doesn’t show, but Lake Dr. extends further south). There are stairs all along this massive hill that lead to downtown, which amazingly, we couldn’t see— not lights from the offices, museums, homes, restaurants— nothing. So we found a monstrous set of stairs, that we were hoping would lead to a break from the wind. The snow was deeper than the steps at this point, so it looked like a snow slide. Umm, awesome!
Anyway, when we finally reached the top, we were on the patio of a restaurant, so we sat under the building for a little while, drinking water from Matt’s thermos, warming our hands, melting the ice off our eye lashes, etc. We continued across bridges and streets, occasionally stepping into waist-high snow drifts, but for the most part, having a peaceful walk. Eventually, a little more than an hour since leaving the dorms, we were back on campus. A jeep drove past us, a drunk asshole hanging out the driver’s window. As most would assume, we caught up to them a block later when they were stuck in a snowdrift on the side of the road. We attempted to help them out, but the engine was already shot— the tires wouldn’t even spin when he hit the accelerator. A block farther, we saw a graffiti artist marking up some bus stops. Hell, why not?
I wish my body would have let me stand on those rocks for hours. Human limitation is one of the hardest things for me to cope with. It just blows my mind that some people think this earth was designed for humans. Clearly, we were designed to survive on this indifferent planet. Whether we were trekking the Milwaukee streets last night or not, those winds still would have been blowing and the lake still have been roaring. Our existence is minuscule compared to the power of the storm last night.