I remember feeling sad all that day. It was raining and my face was drowned in tears like droplets in the ocean, not making a difference at all. So I asked myself, could I be a part of something in this in this vastness when I don't even know who I am?

I started to walk with my old Keroppi umbrella down Shibuya streets, searching for an answer to take this doubt from my heart. Like a puzzle where I have to find the missing part to understand the whole thing. Even when I don't want to.

In the beginning, a girl appeared in front of me wearing a dress with flowers that changes color as she walks, happy and free. So I thought for one instant, maybe I could be a part of her, using the same skin in my clothes. A beautiful walking garden.

I took my phone and made flower patterns beautiful as hers. But after updating, I saw a window display by my side and rapidly erased everything, and it almost slipped from my hands. I became a canvas painted in watercolor with no ink, running to escape from myself.

Some steps away from reflexes, I got starving and entered a restaurant to eat some onigiris. When entered, I saw a group of guys laughing and talking about life while drinking sakê. They were wearing a formal style but casually, something about daily life.

I change the color and structure to enter their world, to feel like them. It was cozy until I finished eating and saw my reflex through the empty black plate in front of me. I got up from those old wooden chairs and ran out of that place without even paying.

With a blurred mind, I didn't perceive entering the Shibuya crossing in rush time. I was blinded by those big fashion advertisements: "Be whoever you want", "Embrace difference", and "Be your skin". So I started to draw anything that I could be similar to.

Everything got more confusing and depressing. The rain was heavier, the streets were full and I was changing myself each second, like an undecided chameleon. But in the middle of the madness, I fell my body floating. Like everything was going down.

Like a splash of reality, I fell into a puddle drowned completely by my thoughts. Feeling hopeless and lost, like a piece internationally forgotten. But when getting up, I saw my reflex once again in the water, as a piece that I couldn't hide anymore.

I looked through the puddle as a mirror, as a piece from the puzzle I was refusing to solve. A situation that was impossible to avoid, and run away once again. So maybe, my research wasn't about finding the answer but accepting the one I used to hide.

Still afraid of staring at myself, I didn't know who I was. Boy? Girl? Worker? Walking garden? Maybe being nothing could be an advantage of something. Maybe the answer is not already built, but something that has to be constructed.

I pick up my phone, which still had charge, and look directly at myself into the water. Opening the app, I started slowly manipulating the structure, module by module. Without thinking of any reference in my head. Just feeling the moment.

Being a young artist can be tough, even if you can't find yourself. One module up, another down, and I felt like a sculptor freely creating the mold to give life to something that was always there. A similar feeling to the lady I saw, happy and free.

After some minutes, fear turned into happiness when I started to add color. Changing blue to yellow, and red to blue, as beautiful paintings on the wall. I didn't know what I was creating, but I didn't care, and my journey had become an adventure to find better reflexes of my own.

When I was almost done, I saw a big bright screen in front of me with no ads, like a big mirror. But there was a detail, something simple that could make all difference. A simple structure, hiding scars in my arms from my desperation in the past.

By changing that simple detail, I accept myself as nothing and everything. My clothes weren't a shirt, a dress, a blazer, or anything like that, they were me. And the answer was nothing but true experimentation with myself all the time.

With my clothes changed and updated, it was almost midnight in Tokyo, and I was ready to come back home to start continuing my work. With no fear of experimenting to change, I will look after myself, even if I have to fall into a puddle of water to find myself again.

- Sato, Kohaku January 15, 2025