Alicia Paz

About Alicia Paz

On the High Plains around Springlake, the sweetest hour is the hush before the wind wakes up, when the center pivots stand silver in the fields and the horizon is a clean, straight line in every direction. By midmorning in spring the gusts arrive and the sky can take on the color of the topsoil, so yard work in this Lamb County town is a matter of timing and grit. Alicia Paz does lawn care here, keeping small green yards alive and orderly in a landscape that is mostly sky and furrow. A mowed lawn on the plains is a little act of defiance, a square of soft green insisting on itself beside the cotton ground. When the dust finally settles and evening comes on amber, it is a quiet pleasure to look out at grass that held its own.