This Email Is About A Living Bat

PLUS: How To Plant Bulbs (YOU HAVE TO, I DON'T CARE)

A Note For You, If You’re Having A Bad Day

Dear Friend,

Yesterday, at the playground, there was a bat.

Like, a living, sleeping bat, tucked covertly but precariously away beneath one of the ledges that my daughter likes to walk along on the perimeter of a play structure. A bigger kid found the bat first, and I’m a little ashamed to tell you that I didn’t believe him. I mean, when a kid says, “Hey, I think I found a bat,” you generally assume he has found a crumpled bag in the general vicinity of a tree. But then more kids gathered around the “bat area,” and the word “bat” was thrown around with greater confidence, and when I went to take a look, I audibly gasped.

“Oh my God, that’s a bat!”

“I said it was a bat,” said the initial (visibly peeved) kid. Poor kid. It sucks when adults refuse to believe you. In this instance, had been a bad adult. But this was neither the time nor place for me to have any shame, because: A BAT!

THE BAT!

The bat was tiny, which has been true of every bat I’ve seen in the wild. This sleeping playground bat was my third. Once, I’d rescued a bat who’d flown into a building while it was migrating through downtown Chicago. The Chicago Bird Collision Monitor woman had scolded me for picking the bat up as though it was a bird, because bats have rabies. Honestly, I hadn’t known this. I think The Office made me not-scared-enough about rabies. It’s actually a terrifying disease, especially if you are the type of person who grabs bats off sidewalks. But anyway, that bat didn’t bite me, and it didn’t have rabies. A woman named Peggy on a bicycle came along and gingerly placed the downtown bat in a paper lunch bag, which went in her bike basket, along with probably twelve other lightly thumping lunch bags, containing other bats who’d flown into buildings but would probably be OK in the end. 

I’m noticing that this is the same kind of bat.

Spending an hour waiting for Peggy and staring at a terrified bat taught me a lot about bats, which is true for anything you spend an hour staring at. I give my Art History students an assignment where they have to look at one painting in the museum without looking at anything else at all for five minutes straight. They have to set a timer. They think this is difficult. I tell them that there is a professor at Harvard named Jennifer Roberts who famously makes her students do this exercise for three full hours, which is true — Oliver Burkeman writes about doing it in “4,000 Weeks.” I’ve done the exercise for a single hour, and found it transcendent. Now, it’s hard to remember a time when I had the luxury of an uninterrupted hour to look at a thing like a painting. Things happen to a painting when you stare at it for that long. Things happen to a bat. Things happen to a person’s face, too. There is nothing you can take in with your senses that is uncomplicated.

“You’re right, you’re right. You said it was a bat,” I responded to the kid. “I’m sorry I doubted you. Look, T: it’s a bat!” I tried to show my two-year-old daughter the bat, which was incredibly stupid of me, because showing a two-year-old anything they’re not allowed to touch is like saying, “Please, I’m begging you to have a tantrum.” She ran to touch the bat, and the gathered congregation of children who had assembled to decide what to do about the bat collectively stopped her. 

I’ll pause to answer your questions. 

“How many children were gathered?” You’d like to know. 

Eight. The youngest child (not including T) was about T’s age, and he had an older brother, who I knew was four, because he’d told me he was four about thirty minutes earlier. The oldest was the bat-finder, who I’d place at roughly 12. 

“Were there any other adults around?” You are wondering. 

The answer to that is no. There were two moms (friends of mine, actually) pushing their daughter on a swing not too far away, but mostly, this playground is a little bit lawless as a general rule. A lot of kids were under the supervision of a single adult, who might’ve been elsewhere on the playground, dealing with some other thing right then. A bunch of quiet children gazing under a ledge does not present as an emergency, so the adults were not anywhere near this area.

I had arrived to confirm that this hanging mound of dark fur was, indeed, a bat; but the congregation was already deep into an argument about What Had To Be Done. The bigger kids were also the loudest ones, and they felt that the bat had to be killed.

“He’s dangerous,” said a boy in a hat. “He’ll bite us! I’ll bet we can throw a rock at him and kill him.”

“Or,” suggested someone in a sparkly pink dress, “it might be better to slowly stab him with a stick. That way he won’t be able to fly free.” 

This subset — those who felt that the bat had to die, for the safety of everyone on the playground — was somber, nervous, and seemed to bear an enormous burden. They had to keep everyone safe from the bat. This was on them. It was a heavy weight to bear.

Two sisters in ponytails off to the side were talking about how they could maybe save the bat, but they were too quiet. No one was listening to them. Barely audibly, one of them managed, “It’s kind of cute.” 

I’ll be honest: I knew I had a major advantage here. I was a grown-up. Grown-ups have a lot of power. When you’re a child, grown-ups can come in and turn entire playground democracies on their heads by saying, “It’s time for dinner, so half of this government is leaving.” I also knew a lot about bats, not only because of my time with the one downtown, but because as a bird-watching, mostly-vegan, animal rights-y person, I have an unusual affinity for them. Also, it was getting to be close to dinner time, and my own daughter, unable to touch the bat, was officially bored of all this and had moved on to lying down on the merry-go-round thing, so I had to favor speed over diplomacy. 

“Do you guys like mosquitos?” I said. Unanimous head shaking. 

“I hate them,” one kid even said.

“Well, that bat is a mosquito ENEMY. When she wakes up, she is going to eat all the mosquitos in this whole park. That’s her job. If you kill her, the mosquitos win. Right now, she just wants to sleep. If you leave her alone, she won’t bother anyone. OK?”

Quiet nodding.

Triumphantly, I walked over to T to push her on the merry-go-round. Most of the kids dispersed to do other things. But a small faction remained behind, still murmuring about the bat. Someone was holding a stick. I could see out of the corner of my eye that these were the older kids; the ones who had wanted to kill the bat the most. And so now, I felt I had to be firmer.

“Hey! Do not bother that bat, OK? Leave her alone.” This time I was using I Am Bigger Than You, And I Am Going To Get My Way Voice, and I knew that as long as I was on the playground, the bat would be safe. 

This was one, tiny, sleeping, fuzzy bat. 

It’s remarkable how quickly people can move from, “I’m scared of that,” to, “We should kill it.” 

Adults are just children who got bigger. 

You can make whatever leaps you want to make from the children and the bat in this story to the very scary world we’re trying to make sense out of (sometimes for our children). I promise, I’m not trying to make this bat into a metaphor. She was only a bat, trying to sleep on a playground — which, let’s all agree, was a real choice on her part. What I noticed was how powerful an emotion fear was; how the desire to be right, and to be perceived as right, overpowered a larger understanding about mosquitos; and how lucky I am that my daughter gets to play at a playground where the children definitely worship different gods, speak different languages, have different types of dinners every night, and can all come together around a bat. These are simple things. 

You are just a child who got bigger. Are there people or places you can access that make you feel safe? Can you hold them close to you? Sometimes, it’s your job to be brave; to know what to do; to decide what is right and what is wrong; to be an adult. Other times, you are allowed to be held; to listen to someone else; to find someone’s arms; to turn off your phone. Discerning one time from the other is not something I know how to tell you how to do. But I trust you in this. 

The bat is not there today. I hope she finds somewhere safer for her, too.

Good luck out there, bravely facing all the things that break your heart.

Love,

Sophie

How To… Plant Bulbs

If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, it is time to plant bulbs, and I’m afraid you must. (And if you aren’t, you lucky duck, it’s time to plant seeds. So, take this advice, but alter it slightly for seeds.)

Here are some possible reactions to my declaration that you must plant bulbs:

• I don’t want to, because I don’t see the point.

• I don’t want to, because it’s gross and seems hard.

• I can’t plant them, because I don’t have a garden.

• I planted bulbs three years ago, and I don’t need to plant more bulbs.

• I have already planted bulbs this year. Do you mean I have to plant MORE?

• I believe you unconditionally, and will do the thing you have told me to do.

• I’ve never heard of this.

• You’re being awfully dramatic.

All reasonable reactions, and I’ll respond to each in turn:

• The point is, it is a radical act of optimism for the you who will be here in April. It is a gift for a person who you haven’t met yet, who you know is coming, and who you believe deserves something beautiful. The point is, when it’s the middle of December and you can’t think of a single thing to smile about, you can smile about the fact that you have a wrapped-up present, deep within the frozen ground, slowly considering the possibility of unwrapping itself for you in just a few months, and all you have to do is wait for it. 

• Bulbs are the easiest gardening. They seem to grow literally anywhere and need nothing from you. (There are exceptions, but beginner’s bulbs like daffodils, lilies, alliums, and tulips will just HAPPEN.) You get a fat stick, put it in a patch of dirt, put the bulb in there, cover it up, and go on with your day. You don’t even need gloves. 

• In the dark of night, go forth. Find dirt that belongs to everyone. Neutral ground, public park, a McDonald’s. Plant there. No one will know, until everyone does. 

• If it’s been years since you planted, you DO need to plant more bulbs. The world always needs more bulbs. Just buy cheap ones from the hardware store and add them somewhere no one is expecting to see something amazing pop up.

• OK, if you already planted THIS YEAR, you don’t need to plant MORE. You’re not made of money.

• Thank you for doing what I have asked you to do. It is important that we do nice things for our future selves, and their friends, and even their dogs. 

• Now you have heard of this.

• I am always dramatic.

If you don’t want to go to a hardware store (where they truly do sell bulbs at a great bargain), you can order them direct from Holland.

Housekeeping

• I have taught my first bird-drawing class! It was REALLY FUN. The first video will post this coming Monday, inside the “INVITATION” email. If you want access to it so you can take the class on your own time, you just need to be subscribed to the paid tier of this newsletter.

• I have a cartoon in The New Yorker this week!

  

• I also have a piece in Slackjaw, Medium’s humor publication this week! Here are a few frames, but you can read the whole thing here. It is titled, “How Different People Talk About Being In Their Twenties.”

  

  

  

Loose Thoughts

• I’ve recently told the people who keep emailing me about fun food eating opportunities that they’ve got the wrong Sophie Johnson. I’m a little disappointed about letting go of this alternate identity, but it felt like it was time to just be myself. I feel that at some point I will write more about this. Have you ever assumed a false identity?

• As I write this, T is awake, but she should not be. Her head is under the blanket. She is doing a short play with her two animals that live in her bed. They are also under the blanket. We are blessed in that she does not ever seem upset to have to go to bed, even when she doesn’t go to sleep.

• Although, sometimes she has a nightmare, and I wonder what her nightmares are about.

• I had a nightmare the other night and woke up actually crying, with tears running down my face. It was about a friend I really miss, who isn’t my friend anymore. I was sobbing when I woke up. This had never happened to me before. Has it ever happened to you?

• Are your dreams ever very on-the-nose?

• I want you to know that Luke and I watch every episode of “SNL” and we always have, ever since we met. If you ever need to talk about “SNL,” I am here. I will always watch every episode, and I’ll always have something to say about it. Mostly, this is lonely. But it matters to me.