In 2023, on the first day of a paragliding tour in Tochigi, Japan,
I launched from a narrow mountain takeoff.
As usual, I had untangled the lines and reattached my harness.
But just after takeoff, I realized something terrifying:
I had forgotten to fasten the buckle.
In that instant, I threw myself downward from the air —
about 10 meters below.
If I had noticed one second later,
I probably would not be alive today.
Compression fractures.
Two months in the hospital.
And yet, strangely, I could not hate the sky.
Flying is not freedom.
It is a negotiation with nature.
Now, instead of flying,
I paint.
Light.
Wind.
Altitude.
That quiet place where beauty and fear coexist.
This video is a fragment of that memory.
— Yuji Yokoo
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