One day, Randonautica sent me towards a lake I didn't know existed.
The app only gives you a random point to walk to; the finding was up to me. I followed unfamiliar paths into the hills alone. There was no guide telling me what was important and no plan telling me how long to stay. Eventually I reached the water and sat down beside it.
I took a photo of myself there in a black-and-red plaid shirt. I don't know the lake's name, and I couldn't put it on a map with any confidence. That doesn't make it less real. If anything, not having a name keeps it the way it felt when I got there: unexpected, quiet, and outside the usual ways places get labelled and sold.
Sitting there, I felt I was exactly where I needed to be.
That feeling came from finding it on my own. I'd chosen to walk, kept going without knowing what I'd reach, and found a place that answered a need I couldn't have put into words. Nobody in Tokyo had told me where the value or the opportunity was supposed to be.
Tokyo is hard on me. I put on weight there, I sit still, and my mood sinks. Nature has to be scheduled, travelled to and squeezed in around the city. In Yugawara I could step outside and start walking. A path might lead to mountains, water, farms, or somewhere I'd never heard of.
The lake didn't solve my life. It gave me a few hours when my life didn't need solving. I could sit by water I'd found myself and trust, for once, that my own sense of direction had taken me somewhere good.