Anna Henkens Schmidt

I waited outside the yoga class, feeling every bit like a middle schooler abandoned by her friends. The instructor was nowhere to be seen. Sweaty men grunted over weight machines. Others pounded the treadmill. A desk worker stared into the void. Had I gotten the time wrong? I pulled out my phone, opened the app, and found the schedule in black and white. Yoga stretch at 7 a.m. This was the location listed.  I arranged my mat. Placed my shoes perpendicular to the wall. Took an unnecessary sip of water.  No one looked in my direction.  The clock said 7:05. An older woman sauntered into the gym. She wore leggings, a long T-shirt, and sandals. Her body was goals—toned, muscular, effortless. Relief washed over me like a cleansing breath. “Are you taking this yoga class?” I asked.  She stopped, glancing at my bare feet. “No. I don’t do that kind of stuff.” “Oh.” “Exercise,” she clarified. “I don’t exercise.” “Noted.” Would this be an okay time to point out she was currentl...

When the ambulance took away my dad, I hid on my parents’ bed and turned the channel to Turner Classic Movies. This was the best room in the house for watching TV on hot summer afternoons. It was the only TV in the house that had a remote control. The basement stayed cool. The room was quiet. No one bothered me. The black and white Hollywood films with soft focus and film noir shadows were an odd choice for a third grader.  But my whole life felt like an odd choice. Above the bed, a tiny window near the ceiling was the only source of natural light. If I climbed onto the headboard, I could just about peek into the rose beds lining the southern exposure of the house. But I didn’t want to look out that window. So I stared instead at the TV.  The plots of those old movies required full attention. Without special effects or plausible green screens, the movies depended on witty banter, meaningful looks, and conflicts that usually went over my head. Still, I tuned in. Perhaps it was ...

From The Ding Dong Altar Boy by Donald Osborn and Anna Henkens Schmidt.  The bank across the street from Harry’s Conoco displayed the current time and temperature. I looked up from filling a customer’s car with gas and wiped the sweat out of my eyes to make sure I could see straight. The digital numbers read 120 degrees. Our small corner of western Nebraska had turned into the devil’s playground. And with half the world on fire, was it any wonder? Half of anything depends on your starting number. In 1973, living as a high schooler in a town with a population of less than 6,000, my world at the time was pretty small. And that world burned with historical significance. South of town by Chadron State Park near Dead Horse Road, a substantial portion of the Nebraska National Forest ignited with a hungry blaze, consuming thousands of acres. Volunteer firefighters from every town within driving distance arrived with shovels, water tanks, helicopters, and airplanes loaded with fire re...

  Some conversations you return to long after they’ve finished. One I return to often took place poolside at a Cancun resort. We only had the girls then, and they were little. Our oldest explored the splash pad with her new best friend, who she’d met ten minutes earlier, while I made sure our eight-month old didn’t topple over into the water.  “Are you a dermatologist?” I swiveled my head to see a bikini-clad woman dangling her feet over the edge. She looked straight at me. “Excuse me?” I said. “Are you a dermatologist?” she asked again, confirming I’d heard correctly the first time. “You look like a dermatologist.” For a split second, I thought maybe I’d finally nailed my skincare routine.  “Cause you’re all wearing swim shirts,” she continued. Oh. That. It was true. I’d learned early in the summer that slathering sunblock on myself, a four-year-old, and a baby made for a miserable experience. So I went out and purchased three SPF 50 swim shirts. They held up nicely agai...

How much would you charge to blow into a dog’s mouth? Keep in mind that the going rate is between $500-$700. Why the range? I wondered the same thing.  What constitutes the extra $200?  The number of breaths transmitted to the canine? Or is it a per minute rate? And what happens if the dog requires resuscitation beyond the $700 mark?  These were the questions I faced at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday morning when dropping off the beloved family dog for a tooth extraction. The woman at reception slid a paper across the desk.  “Because anesthesia is involved, consent is required if you’d like CPR performed on your dog in case of an emergency.” I looked at the boxes. Box One: Yes ($500-$700) Box Two: No (Dead dog) Okay, the dead dog in parenthesis was my personal addition, but it was implied. I looked between the empty boxes and the quivering dog at my feet. Even though I grew up as a farm girl in western Nebraska, I have to admit the dog has wormed his way into family member st...

The moon captivates and incites imagination. It transforms humans into werewolves, stabilizes our seasons, amplifies magic, tracks our time, and pulls the oceans toward the coastlines. Both real and imagined, humanity has bestowed great power on the great, orbiting rock. It's beautiful and otherworldly and yet it belongs to all of us. Together we watched the footage from Artemis 2 and our fascination with the moon grew. The four astronauts flew farther from Earth than any humans in more than fifty years, and as they swung around the far side of the moon, something remarkable happened. The sun disappeared behind it, its corona forming a glowing halo around the darkened lunar surface. Even from 252,756 miles away, the moon could not shine on its own. With our eyes so focused on the beauty of the moon, we can lose sight of the true power behind it. Because without the sun, the moon would be nothing. Sure, it'd still be held in orbit by Earth's gravitational pull, but no one wo...