shadows in the park
carry all I ever was—
and what I might be
I’ve often wondered what people really mean when they ask you to describe yourself. Is it a list of things you’ve done, the jobs you held, the way you take your coffee, or is it the sum of the small choices that shape the days no one ever sees? If you ask me now, I’d rather answer with a story, and not just because stories travel further than facts. Stories are what’s left behind when the rest is gone.
The best stories, in my experience, never announce themselves. They just happen, quietly, like two people meeting in a city that never really sleeps.
For a few years, my life drifted, half-lived between cities: Ljubljana, Berlin, Tokyo. Work was always piecemeal—translation here, a little writing there, odd jobs that left no trace. Tokyo was where things settled, if only because it was where they fell apart.
It was early autumn. A damp chill hung over the city, and evenings pressed in fast. I was living in a small apartment with paper-thin walls above a bakery that started its day at four in the morning. Most days, I’d wake to the sound of metal trays, yeast blooming, the soft percussion of kneading dough.
One night, after a failed pitch and a dinner that tasted mostly of exhaustion, I found myself under the red glow of a lantern outside a yakitori stall in Koenji. I wasn’t looking for company, but company found me. He was older, maybe by a decade, with a fox’s grin and a manner that suggested he’d never hurried in his life. His name was Kenta.
We shared a plate of mushrooms and chicken skin, neither of us talking much. After a while, he asked, “What do you build?” I hesitated. Build? I thought of spreadsheets and emails and half-finished blog posts.
“Nothing much,” I said. “Words, sometimes. Stories, when I can.”
He nodded. “Words are good. You can build a whole world from words, if you’re patient enough. But only if you know how to sell them, too.”
I shrugged. “I’ve never been good at selling.”
He smiled, unfazed. “Nobody is, until they realize there’s nothing left to lose.”
Kenta showed up in my life the way seasons shift in Japan—not suddenly, but all at once, as if he’d always been there. Sometimes we’d meet at dawn for coffee in a corner shop near Yoyogi Park. The owner would nod, place two cups of strong, slightly burnt coffee on the counter, and let the jazz records play in the background.
We talked about work, but not the way people usually do. He believed in leverage—a word he never actually said, but always circled around. “If you can make something that helps people, something only you can make,” he told me once, stirring his coffee slowly, “then you never have to chase luck. It comes to you, quietly, while you’re doing the work.”
Other days, we’d walk the long road behind Meiji Shrine, the air thick with the smell of cedar and wet leaves. I told him about my first months in Tokyo, the loneliness that never quite went away, the freedom that sometimes felt like floating in space.
He laughed. “Freedom is beautiful, but it’s not a home. You have to choose, sooner or later, what you’re willing to stick with. Most people never do. They wait for someone else to choose for them.”
I asked him how he got started. He talked about failed businesses, late nights learning to code in rented rooms, and a stretch of months living off convenience store onigiri. “The trick is to fail quickly,” he said. “Try, learn, and cut your losses. If something’s not working, let it go. And when you find what does work—be relentless. Pour everything in. Let it grow.”
Sometimes we’d meet in quieter corners of the city. An old jazz bar in Ginza, a bakery that sold thick slices of toast and black coffee, or a bench in Ueno Park as dusk settled over the carp pond. In each place, Kenta seemed to carry the same stillness, the same quiet optimism.
He taught me that money isn’t the goal. “Money is a tool. Use it, don’t worship it. Build assets, not hours. Write, code, paint, teach—whatever it is, make sure it keeps working when you sleep.”
His lessons never came as advice, more as reminders of things I’d already known but forgotten. He spoke of compound effort, of the power of small, daily practice. “People want success fast, but the world rewards patience. And clarity. If you know what you’re doing and why, it’s easier to let go of everything else.”
I started to change without realizing. I stopped saying yes to work that paid but meant nothing. I focused on writing stories for people who wanted to read, not for algorithms or empty likes. I built small things—guides, translations, a series of blog posts about cycling along the Tama River. I paid attention to what felt easy, what drew me back again and again.
Kenta called these “frictionless skills.” “When you find something that feels light, it’s usually because you’re good at it. Do more of that. Don’t try to be someone else’s idea of valuable.”
One night, after a long walk along the Sumida River, I asked him what he would say if someone asked him to describe himself.
He thought for a long time, watching a ferry cross beneath a bridge. “I’m someone who makes things. And someone who lets things go, when the time comes.”
If you asked me now, I would tell you: I am a collection of places, seasons, and small routines. I am friendships that return after long absences. I am unfinished work and quiet mornings and long walks through cities that change even as I stay the same.
I am not rich in the way magazines talk about, but I am free. Free in the way that comes from building slowly, letting go quickly, and returning to the things that matter. I know how to work hard, but also how to rest. I know the value of patience, and the joy of giving something away with no expectation of return.
I have learned to recognize what is enough.
life 
Leave a comment