I'm Italy Mone and this is The Slowdown.

Unlike some of my friends, I've never been scared of bats.

Even as they circled overhead in the twilight, even with their eerie vampiric myths and

two true terrifying reports of rabies, I like them.

They're like nightbirds.

I particularly liked their movements, the way they dart and swoop and navigate by echolocation.

You can also count on them, their nighttime appearances.

We'd sit on our rooftop in downtown Sonoma and wait for them to come out just around

sunset.

We'd watch and point and gasp when they first showed up against the salmon-colored sky.

Now, when they arrive at dusk in Kentucky, they remind me that the whole world is brimming

with life at all hours.

The birds I've been watching all day tuck themselves into their trees, and then the bats

come out, a changing of the guard.

But perhaps one of my favorite things about bats came out of a conversation I had with

my friend Jason Schneiderman, who once pointed out that bats have both wings and hands.

Think about it, wings and hands.

Once my friend Kristen asked my husband and me which animal we would be if we could

be any animal in the world.

She chose a whale because she could explore the unknown depths of the ocean and she could

have a pod and a song.

My husband chose a shark so he could feel safe in the knowledge that no one else would

...