When the world shut down during the pandemic,
I suddenly felt something I had never felt before:
Fear.
As a small wagashi artisan in Japan, I worried every day:
“What if I can’t work anymore?”
“What if I can’t pay my staff?”
“What if I lose my home?”
Everything felt like it was collapsing.
⸻
One night, while scrolling through music online,
I saw an album cover.
Not a popular artist.
Not a famous band.
Just a simple jacket—
a design filled with tools, gear, and the essence of “survival.”
It wasn’t glamorous.
It wasn’t made to sell.
It was made to remind people of how to live.
At that moment, something hit me.
This artist…
this unknown musician somewhere in America…
He wasn’t singing about money.
He wasn’t decorating his cover to look cool.
The jacket carried life itself—
the message:
“As long as you can live with your own hands,
you have nothing to fear.”
And I started crying.
⸻
Because I realized:
I had feared losing things
that were never the foundation of life.
Money.
Work schedules.
Business structures.
Loans.
Expectations.
But what that album jacket showed me was this:
Real life is built on something deeper:
That night, a single piece of album art
—made by someone I would never meet—
pulled me back to myself.
⸻
And from that moment,
I decided:
I want to build a world where people
don’t lose their breath just because the system shakes.
A world where “living” means more than “earning.”
A world where hands, skills, nature, and community
are stronger than fear.
That album jacket became a lighthouse for me.
And “Kono-wa” stopped being just a wagashi shop—
it became a place to protect real life,
to keep people warm,
to keep people breathing.
⸻
So if you ever feel afraid—
Remember the music jacket.
Remember what it carried.
Remember that you, too, have everything you need to live.
And no system, no crisis, no collapse
can take that strength from you.
