The whole idea came about during a rather nerdy conversation with an old high school friend. She’s not old, though I guess that soon we will both be old because thirty is only a year away and then “it’s all downhill from there,” unless we choose to live for a really, really long time. So we are having this conversation about the first ever library in Turkey because I was reading about Greek architecture, which is in a class of nerdy all by itself. I’d say it’s level-three nerd. And this would make my friend a level-four nerd, because not only was she able to follow the conversation, she was able to add to it.
“It has four statues of goddesses in the front and each one represents something to do with knowledge. You should write about that.”
And now I’m reeling. I’d just finished reading The Ten Books on Architecture (Vitruvius) and I remembered learning about Caryatides: women frozen in the form of architectural columns, representing the women of Caryae. The people of Caryae were at war with the Greeks and having lost, their women were enslaved to Greece, thus being locked in stone forever. The Greeks were so metaphorical. Though I don't know if that's metaphorical or just dramatic. Probably a bit of both. I digress.
In my head, the women in stone (Sophia, Episteme, Ennoia, Arete) became four modern day women. Each of their mythological stories will reflect the life of each of the women in stone. But before I get that far, I have to know the meaning of the name Sophia.
Socrates understood philosophy as philo-sophia, literally meaning the love of wisdom. It is only fitting for a statue of Sophia to exist outside of Celsus, the first known library.
So the topic, or general idea, is to create a book based upon the Celsus Library in present day Turkey. I plan to mimic the structure and its four stone statues with language. I also plan to drink copious amounts of coffee and stay away from cigarettes, as I picked a rotten time to quit smoking, having just birthed another literary idea.
Now I’m back to research. Still without shower. Abusing punctuation and abandoning all hopes of being social today.
