By Vipassana Esbjörn When Life Stopped Being A Problem Moss-and-ruby hummingbirds flutter outside my window on a passing breeze. The pungent scent of blooming roses drifts through the house as afternoon flies get stuck between the screen and the window, buzzing for their lives. Shriveled giant cacti ferment on the porch, flooded by El Niño rains, while fluorescent magenta petals poke through the nearby soil. This collage of birth and death, growth and rot is a reminder of my own fragile, temporal existence in this flesh. Here is a story about that collage, a story about a young girl growing up; it is my story. It is also a tale about seemingly opposing forces—life and death, East and West, the relative and absolute—and the transformational possibilities of two worlds in collision.
