Hello friends,
Earlier this month, my friend Trilety wrote about a bat that got into her bedroom. She detailed her mission to guide it back outside, and the description triggered a memory I hadn’t thought about in a decade. That memory sparked another. The bats of my past flapped around my mind, and I sheltered them in the cave of my thoughts.
The summer before my senior year of high school, I was in Warwick, NY, located a couple of hours outside New York City. Warwick was home to Kutz Camp, a sleepaway camp in the middle of nature. It was like a teenage commune, a place of freedom from our real lives. For a few weeks, we could be whoever we wanted. Occasionally, whether we wanted to or not, we became park rangers.
One day, I had some downtime, and my friends and I lounged around in one of the common areas. I don’t remember how the bat got in, but I remember a group of us coordinating to close all the doors to the room and open the windows. Someone went to get a sheet. The rest of us waited, our eyes on the bat, willing it to recognize the open windows and save us a load of trouble.
When our friend returned with the sheet, he crept in through a crack in the door, careful not to allow the bat to wreak havoc in the rest of the building. We opened the sheet like a parachute while one of our friends used a broom to herd the bat into our cotton trap. Twenty minutes later, the bat was outside, and we collapsed onto a nearby couch, sweating and exhausted.
Four years later, I sought out the bats intentionally. I was on the verge of graduating from the University of Florida in Gainesville. In the downtime between the end of exams and the official graduation ceremony, my friends and I explored Florida’s various natural treasures. One of those gems existed right on campus—the UF bat houses.
My roommate and I drove to the structures one evening with dozens of other students and visitors. The small parking lot filled quickly, and we all ambled about while waiting for the sun to set. The gathered visitors emitted a low hum of conversation that ebbed and flowed alongside the singing cicadas. The humans buzzed with anticipation. The insects didn’t seem aware they were about to become food. The bats prepared to emerge into the night, and we readied ourselves to witness them.
As twilight became dusk, the first few bats exited their homes. Then, all at once, the sky filled as nearly 500,000 bats went in search of dinner. They flew in a heavy stream from the barns like a flood of water released from a dam. We oohed and aahed reflexively, our utterances mirroring the colony chatter above.
Within minutes, the bats were gone. The flood dispersed into the growing darkness. For a moment, we were all quiet, and then the spell was broken. The insect hum returned along with the mundane discussions of humanity. Some of us meandered back to our cars and bikes, while others walked off for a nighttime stroll. Nature carried on as usual, and so did we.
Until next time,
Yardena
Weekend Potpourri
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