Lifelong Learning

After the lifting of the COVID state of emergency, I received an invitation to hold a flower exhibition inside a long-established eatery in Asakusa.

Precisely because it was still a time when the world harbored an anxiety with no end in sight, the organizer’s wish was to title it the “Exhibition of Hope” and to heal the customers who came there with food and flowers.

Without hesitation I resolved to take part, and filled the restaurant with the power of flowers.

Then, from the serving staff working at this eatery, and all the staff, and the management, I received no end of praise: “I’m healed, and work is fun,” “I feel dreamy, and my heart bounces with delight,” “The comfort of a space with flowers dispels my anxiety,” and so on.

For me, it was the finest praise, letting me feel keenly the purpose and reward of a career involved with flowers.

In the customer business, I’d come to feel keenly, through experience, that unless the people working there feel happy, that feeling never conveys itself to the customers—so I had a premonition that the “Exhibition of Hope” would succeed.

“No, wait!” Over the one-week run, for my own convenience I’d scheduled flower touch-ups on only three days. On the days I couldn’t come, I’d asked the on-site staff to keep the flowers watered and swap out any that had wilted.

At this rate the “Exhibition of Hope” could turn into an “Exhibition of Despair”—furious at my own irresponsibility, I headed in every morning to do the touch-ups.

As a result, I was able to move many customers, and it was a fine place of learning where I also gained a new cold-sweat experience.