After returning home I was struck by a loss of words. There is always the irreconcilable gap that exists between a world falsely divided between First and Third: the scarcity of abundance, the desperation that borders on social collapse; then, in an almost transitionless moment (save for the interminable waits in airports, the people of all shapes and sizes and colors flowing in mind-boggling numbers through the international transit system), once again transplanted into the land flowing with milk, honey, plastics, and cheap circuit boards. Welcome to America.

The loss of words comes, in part, from a saturation with information. According to television, the globalized world seems to be ripping apart along the fringes of civilization. The bloodshed affects oil prices, and provides work for an army of television pundits intent on waging a propaganda war that pales in comparison with the actual combat taking place on the ground.

And so my mind waffles in a sea of doubt, and searches longingly for an anchor to the physical world. A Garden. A garden is everything that war is not. It is safe for children; it is healthy and healing and full of intricate natural relationships. It is local self-reliance; it eschews our addiction to petroleum and its toxic derivatives, including its petrochemicals and the endless War on Terror.

A garden is my connection to reality. It forces me to confront insects I never new existed and to learn water management strategies crucial to our survival as a desert community. It allows me to taste foods fresher and purer than those mechanically planted and sprayed and harvested, processed a million times over, then transported over thousands of miles of road and ocean in refrigerated containers.

A garden gives me hope in a time of despair, and it makes me believe that faithful citizens doing a million little things, repeatedly and willfully, can defeat the imperialists and the religious fanatics with their mindless, ideological wars and their blasé destruction of our fragile home.

So again I will shift the focus of this blog, from Bolivian politics to a garden, planted in the late summer and harvested in autumn. The garden will be my anchor to reality.