Most of my life revolved around scholars, books and libraries. My very first teacher introduced me to Socrates. By means of significance and enchantment of the words, books carried me to distant places and permitted me to meet diverse people, try to understand and explore their cultures, and share their experiences. Over time, as my views expanded, libraries became my astronomical observatories and novels my telescopes. Whenever I had a life puzzle to solve, and no one was able to help me, I found comfort in books. The books made libraries into cosmos of their own, which made them to have a life of their own. I felt that each person was one small library by itself. So was I, the wondering child.

My parents, my educators, and an exceptional school system from the country of my origin, Yugoslavia, and its capital, Belgrade, had a tremendous influence on constructing my mental and emotional well-being. My country belonged to the non-aligned movement. The neutral politics recognized by the Western and accepted by Eastern Europe formed a unique and versatile kind of culture. By breaking political boundaries and opening the doors for art and science from all over the world, Yugoslavia implemented free and well-rounded education. As a part of it, the studies of my language had a high emphasis on national and a world literature.

For each twelve years of my schooling the rule was strict and simple: I had to read one novel or story, and memorize one poem each week. If not, I had to repeat the school year. The leisure time during summer breaks was almost an illusion. On a daily basis I had to stay home for several hours and read heavy tomes and trilogies. Later, I had to write journals and long book reports. Only if there was any time left, I swam, played, built sand castles, and made friends. As harsh as it may seem, the regimental system worked.

By the age of thirteen I became a regular inventory of almost every library in the city. Hooked on reading and learning, entertained and excited, I was rarely bored. Every novel or story I read gradually coached my uninformed intellect and produced a whole structure of dreams and expectations. Some hopes vanished, some modified, and as I got older, some dreams became more intensified and alive, several came true.

Every now and then, a little girl inside me appears out of the blue, and starts daydreaming. I greet her and celebrate in private the fact that she is still around and very much alive. She keeps me thriving and guards my sanity. The imagination and curiosity when I was a child, empowered by reading, helped me to carry on my newborn liaison to the world and stay connected to the universe through my own observatories and telescopes. No matter how rough, ironical, or twisted the diversions of life may be, and how outlandishly lonely, busy, or estranged to myself I may feel, I try hard to consistently foster all of my childhood memories: good and bad, at the same time.

Selective memory doesn’t function for me. Avoidance of pain and hurt never helped me. It only tricked me, blinded me and made me to act deceiving to myself. It also eroded my humanity. My whole being was created from many types of diversities, and the opposites that attract. The only place where opponents can live harmoniously is in my head, as a product of the work of mind. Reasoning helped me to keep them balanced to a certain extend.

At a very young age I perceived books, as they were people: mysterious and introversive, or open minded and honest. Books spoke to me, consoled me, inspired me, gave me confidence and humored me, just like people can do; they confused me, scared me, and isolated me, just like people have done. I left much of my DNA on their pages. I cried, laughed and empathized with characters: like I would with people during handshakes, or inside the warmth and closeness of hugs.

From time to time, while holding a book in the library, I had a premonition that the responses to my wonders belonged to some mysterious, greater phenomenon, rather then to what colorful children literature had to offer. I was a second grader, when one day, a serendipitous day, my philanthropic and wise teacher introduced me to the thought of Socrates. It was the day, when my maturity started. I named it: “the discovery of Socrates – day”.

I was eight, my inquisitiveness was endless, my extra sensitivity easily exposed, my outgoing personality scared my parents, because of my naivety. I knew how to read and write, and ask questions unbearably hard to answer. I also liked shiny toys and pretty clothes. I was eight, going on eighteen. The day just before my eighth birthday changed my outlook on things forever. In the morning, before departing to school, I wore my new, shinny burgundy shoes and new matching cashmere coat, which my mother sewed for me. I felt pretty, happy, all grown-up, and very important.

Unexpectedly, dark shadow crossed my mind. It was a strong, intuitive thought. Even as a second-grader, I was able to feel that moments of complete exhilaration will be rare and short lasting experiences in my later life. Deep down, inside, I felt the soft tissue of my young soul. It was my inherited love for people, and love of truth, which could get me hurt. I smiled anyway. My twenty pound back pack and my sunny face followed the dashing new shoes to school. Soon, I was in the classroom, my second home.

I worshiped my teacher, Mrs. Adjic. She taught the first four years of my schooling. I trusted and looked up to her. An excellent pedagogue, she sincerely cared about everybody’s education, personal integrity and emotional welfare. Nowadays, after decades have passed, I still can vividly picture her distinguished, aged face, and hear her sometimes firm, sometimes gentle, but never angry voice. My elementary school teacher was my first mentor, and my first portable library. She was the person that had the most substantial influence on the growth of my personal independence and love for knowledge.

As the “discovery day” continued, my eyes, hungry to learn, slid on the black board. I liked the black board. The numbers written on it were dancing toys, the letters and words were magician tricks, and hand drawn maps invited the image of traveling crowds and train whistles. The black board was the blue print for my brain. Something was written on the board.

It said: “All I know is that I know nothing.” Socrates.

The teacher explained that one wise man from ancient Greece said those words two thousand years ago, because he realized how strong the power of knowledge could be. Mrs. Adjic suggested that we were too young to understand his words, but that we should just try to memorize it, and remember it for later. The saying stuck in my mind for the rest of the day. I wondered how the dead philosopher could be so sagacious, and still not know anything. The thought of Socrates was gently erased from the black board. It disappeared only from the black board, not from my mind. It will stay there like a guiding star for the rest of my life. Otherwise, this rhetoric would never be written.

On the day I discovered Socrates, one trivial aspect of my personality vanished forever. After school, I stopped caring about my new wine colored shoes, my new coat, and self-importance. Ever since, material things, like nice looking clothes, houses and cars could make me feel excited, but definitely not important. On the “Discovery of Socrates Day,” one saying from the black board created a beginning of a new chapter in my book of life. I decided to start finding the answers to everything that I didn’t know about. I might still have not succeeded, but I am enjoying the journey.

On the same day, the curious cat in me took me to thethe local library. The library was one small, time-stricken building, hidden among uneven bushes and evergreen trees inside the miniature park. The park was my oasis in the middle of the concrete desert: not too many people; a couple of benches in the shade; a little fountain; and me, the little girl thirsty for books. Before my teacher introduced me to Socrates, I would only visit the children’s’ section of the library and read outside, sitting on the bench.

This is where I met Heidi, pictured the white mountains of Switzerland and dreamt of friends like Peter and Clara, and then found them. In my secret garden I was Robinson Crusoe and had my own island. I am still dreaming about that one. The adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on the Mississippi river woke up the risk-undertaking side of me, and I traveled four continents. White Fang escalated my love for the animals. Now I have four: a dog, a cat, a turtle and a bird. The numerous stories derived from the European climate, during and after World War II, helped me to understand the horrible nonsense of wars and led me to become a pacifist.

When I walked in, the library seemed deserted and unusually quiet. The sound of silence was overwhelming. I stood in the middle of the floor heavy footed and light minded. Dizzy, scared, and anxious for unexplainable reason, I almost enjoyed that new feeling. I even didn’t look at the children section illuminated by afternoon sunlight. The brightness bothered me. I thought of ancient Greece and tried to imagine how Socrates looked two thousand years ago. Two thousand years ago? It seemed like a huge number. I just learned how to calculate up to one thousand. Did he have clever blue eyes like my father? I wondered what that mysterious word, philosophy, meant. It was another enigma to be unraveled.

Some force dragged me to the back of the library where the stacks of books were thicker and the light was ghostly dimmer. The smell of mildew was strong. It was the scent of time, the scent of history, of human creativity. I thought of my grandparents and old parts of town and cemeteries. I found a little step stool and climbed as far as I could reach. The shelf was covered in dust and almost empty. By the second my heartbeat was getting louder and louder. African drums played where my heart was supposed to be.

In the very back corner I noticed a colossal book. It looked like an archaic, child’s suitcase carried by many hands. I saw myself as an owl waiting in the darkness for the midnight prey. My gut feeling told me that I was in the presence of something beyond belief.

Very slowly and carefully I suspended myself and kneeled on the shelf. Stunned for a moment, I fixed my eyes on the huge treasure hidden in the back. The book had a faded, heavy leather brown cover, and yellowish, bulky, and worn pages. It was too heavy for an eight year old. I squeezed the muscles of both arms very tightly and used two hands to turn the pages. Between the pages marked as a Plato’s work “Apology,” I found a turquoise bird feather. Between the last page and the back cover was the inscription dated on June, 19th 1949 that said: “Emma, for all of your love for Greek Philosophy, please accept this amazing and rare book: ‘Collection Of All Philosophical and Literary Works Of Classic Greece,’ from 1915. Let the philosophy, poetry, drama, mythology, and most of all, your love for truth, guide you and help you to make sense of all of your wondering travels, always yours, your friend, Philip.” [Philip would later become my son’s name.]

I had a feeling that pair of old, but friendly eyes were watching me.

The mold choked me. My little library was breathing.

When I finished the fourth grade, my family moved to a newer part of town. In fifth grade I had seven teachers for seven different subjects. I missed my friends and I missed Mrs. Adjic, who bonded us together. The old part of town where I grew up had a history of conquers and liberators, the soul of poets and lovers, and the heart of Marathon runners. My new neighborhood smelled like synthetics. Often, I changed two busses just to get to my first intellectual shrine, the tiny park and the library.

Sometimes, when no one was around, I relaxed on the bench and meditated. Within the two years since I left my old neighborhood I bought several books about ancient Greece and Socrates, and started my personal library. His life story helped me to better understand that part of Mrs. Adjic’s approach to education derived from Socrates: whenever the weather was nice, my peers and I had lectures in the middle of the forest discussing the flora and fauna; or sitting on a wavy green meadow on the outskirts of Belgrade, having lunch and social studies, while the villagers planted their crops; or by the Danube river, study ing basic laws of physics, while watching lazy ships rolling down their cargo, all the way to the Black Sea. We exercised, learned breathing techniques and practiced balance between the body and the mind.

The analogy between Mrs. Adjic and Socrates became obvious. During my contemplation Mrs. Adjic was like Socrates, and we, the children, were like his pupils in a school named Academia. He spent the most of his time in his agora (open marketplace), in Athens where outside, under the open sky he taught his philosophy, and where he was tried and condemned to death.

According to Plato’s “Apology” in a response to his death sentence, Socrates said:

“Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions!”

Socrates was not afraid of death. He accepted his death as an opportunity to continue his philosophical quest, meet Odysseus and Sisyphus and discuss true and false knowledge. Sitting on the bench like a guardian of my little library I asked myself is that all we have during our time on this Earth: quests and opportunities? Socrates died hoping that his mission will not stop.

Even though I have never spoken to Mrs. Adjic about Socrates since I finished fourth grade, I allowed myself to take the liberty and conclude that she followed Socrates’ footsteps and devoted her life to the beauty of knowledge and the challenges of teaching and educating. She understood her opportunity and turned it into a long-term pursuit and fulfilled it completely. She did it with so much profundity, distinction and grace. I might be the only one of her students who thinks so, but in my mind, that puts her in a similar group where Plato and Socrates are: deep thinkers whose philosophies and ways of life reached far out and influenced many lives, societies, and the entire Western civilization.

My imagination drew the faces of authors that were dead. My thoughts browsed through the words of the books I read and the feelings they provoked. I traveled geographical distances and admired the beauty of planet Earth. I screamed out of madness, when I saw poverty, beyond anything that resembles humanity. The protagonists from the books took me inside their souls, and I experienced rage and love, compassion and suffering, and the thrill of giving and receiving. I fought meaningless wars, delivered babies, and lost all my money to a gambling addiction. I was my little library. My little library was my own self.

The premonitions I had, felt strikingly real. In a flash, I knew what happened: the fresh conclusion radiated my mind. The literature, Socrates, Mrs.Adjic , my parents, and all the other significant people and institutions assisted me in creating connections to the world that didn’t disconnect yet, and never will. On the contrary, that nexus is getting stronger and stronger, by every hour because at the present I am seriously writing too.

When I turned twelve, the old library was demolished. A new glass building took its place. The new library had many new shelves to be filled, much more knowledge to be stored in the millions of volumes of almost the entire human experience.

Libraries are one of the most welcoming places, and their hands are open to everyone with good intentions and hunger, or a need for knowledge and friendship. Russian writer Maxim Gorki said: “You are never alone, when in the company of the smart thoughts”.

At the age of nineteen I was back in the old part of town, living in my own place. My private library increased over the years and took the space of one whole wall in my small apartment. I put a couple of uneven houseplants and a little bench to reassemble my first intellectual shrine that didn’t exist anymore.

Over the years I formed several deep friendships, built on honesty, the love for books, the art and music. I had a variety of different fields of curiosity to satisfy. I liked to go to the movies, and especially plays and concerts. Museums were a treat on Sundays. But of all the places I went, I liked picnics and dinner parties at my home the most. Over dinner we discussed the new books we read, occasionally acted like each other’s therapists for no charge, and indulged each other in good humor to laugh loudly and infectiously. Occasionally, we had healthy old-fashioned arguments that gave a positive Karma to our relationships. The social aspect of my personality was in its heyday.

A charismatic attitude, a love for people, and righteousness were what I saw as a good reflection of myself in my friend’s eyes. My own mirror reflected an emotional person, but a strong woman who transforms negative emotions into a powerful tool for bravery. I had a courage when I followed my intuition when I was eight, after I had a destine opportunity to be introduced to the thought of Socrates, and found myself in a mysterious part of the library. Fearful, but strong-minded I climbed on the grimy shelf, discovered a unique book and read even more incredible inscription, written on one of the pages. In the course of that event, I was very collected and calm on the outside, but adrenalin boiled my blood on the inside. With the same kind of boldness and boiling calmness I continued following my senses and gut feelings for most of my life.

Many years later, as an adult, I had a strong vision of love, pursued my intuition pretty much blindly and found myself in another country. In a name of love I made overnight decision to buy a one-way ticket and leave my adored homeland. Simply, I loved my husband.

I left Belgrade, the town that meant so much to me: the city that had a delightful and magic capacity to cleanse away all the sand of the soul pressured by mundane life and rejuvenate it with the easiness of a good hearted giant; Belgrade stretched out on nine hills like a wavy, gorgeous, and lazy feline on the Sunday sun. I departed from the place that inhales its life through the blankets of many parks, trees, monuments, museums, theatres and sport centers, and exhales its fatigue through waters of the delta of the Danube and Sava rivers.

I went away leaving the city that chronicled so much blood, death and damage during forty-two bombings, before the end of World War Two and for the forty-third time when the U.S. military bombed it recently. But, Belgrade rose from the ashes as free and liberated town, every time when someone tried to conquer or destroy it, and opened its friendly arms again an again. My town and I have had so much in common.

Behind me, I left my family and friends and all my evocative yesterdays. Out of strikingly powerful feeling of love I have said goodbye to everything I have left behind, and moved to America. I am still married to my American husband and have two children.

Many aspects of my personality changed since came to live in America. Before I left my country I learned that the largest library of the B.C. era, the library in Alexandria, burned to the ground a few times, and was rebuilt again. This is how I had to rebuild myself in my new country, all over again.

I had to start creating some new personal libraries, pristine observatories and new telescopes. Most importantly, I had to start learning a new language, and adjusting to a American culture and completely new way of life. During the process of recreating and rebuilding that person that I used to be, the hardest and everlasting challenge that I’ve faced, and still am facing every existing minute of my life, is the nostalgia and the sickness that has no cure, known in English as homesickness. I have had to cope with it in the best possible manner that I could. And still, I do. I have written about it, and as my knowledge of English language becomes better, I will write more. My story for now has no closure and it may never have one.

Because, no book that I have read, no teacher that I have ever loved, not Socrates’ wisdom that changed my life, not my mother that loves me and gave me birth, not my father with his clever blue eyes, no exceptional school system could have ever been able to prepare me for the new word that I had to learn – homesickness, a bottomless abyss of my present life.

Something was written on the board.

It said: “All I know is that I know nothing.” Socrates.