Big Hair and a Book
Jasmin Aaliyah Lowe-Velazquez
Personal Statement
Hello! This is a personal literary essay I wrote for my English 101 class. There’s trigger warnings for bullying, depression, and just overall mental health struggles.
Big Hair and a Book
Throughout my entire life, including now, people always recognize me by my hair. Curly, brown, and perpetually frizzy hair. My trademark. Although hair is important to who I am, I think books will forever be the biggest part of me.
According to my mother, I started reading when I was 3, I can’t corroborate that since I don’t remember being 3. In fact, I don’t remember much of my childhood. But I remember the books I read. There were 3 extremely important books that have shaped my entire life, or at least my life until now, but I can almost guarantee that they will always be important to me. These books represent different types of reading, or different reasons you might read.
The first type is reading for knowledge, represented by the Egyptology book. As a child I was very interested in Egyptian mythology, and I read every book I could get my hands on about it. I read every single book relating to Egyptian history or religion in my elementary school at least twice.
Reading for knowledge, doing research, and taking notes has always been one of my favorite hobbies. It’s why I’m able to get research projects and essays done so quickly. Recently I’ve been using my research reading for other things, like convincing my parents to do something for me or to win an argument or simply for fun. The beauty of research is that it never ends – there’s always more knowledge. Even if I’m not out in the deserts of Egypt digging for tombs myself, I’m promised that there’s people who are, and that they’ll share their finds for me to read.
The second type of reading is reading for fun or escapism, represented by The Adventures of Odysseus. This book is full of colors and epic stories, my personal favorite being when Odysseus and his crew are turned into pigs by Calypso – who my oldest dog is named after. I feel like everyone who reads outside of school or work is reading for escapism, whether it be falling into a fairy tale with the Brother’s Grimm or falling out of bad habits with a self-help book. I’ve read The Adventures of Odysseus hundreds of times, but I can’t remember a single quote. But I do remember the feelings, the colors, and the excitement. I was a very sophisticated reader as a child – I rarely read books with pictures, but regardless of the pictures I never considered this book childish or under my level. But this book, and no book ever made, will ever compare to the next.
The last, and most important type of reading is reading for beauty. No other book can be as beautiful to me as The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems. There’s one poem that has made an eternal impact on me, and I can’t figure out why. “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe is a story of love and death and loving beyond the limitations of mortality. The narrator is desperately in love with Annabel Lee, so they get married. But everyone in the kingdom, in the heavens, and in hell is jealous of their love. The king locks Annabel Lee in a tower away from her love, and eventually, she dies. The story itself is beautiful, but the rhythm and words and the way Poe weaves everything into such a short story with such a big impact is incredible – so incredible that every time I had the opportunity to bring that book to school or write about it, I did. If you haven’t read that poem, I urge you to do so.
How did I get those books? How did I come to love reading? Well, my family is full of readers, and the 3 books mentioned above come from family, specifically, my older brother, who was given those books by my mother. My love of books has been mostly fostered by my mother and grandmother. They’ve always given me books. In fact, when I went back to Oklahoma to visit family, my grandmother let me take a boxload of her books and sent me another boxfull after I got back to Washington. My reading journey was definitely enabled by my family.
I don’t really remember a time that I was reading consistently outside of school. From what I know, it’s a recent thing I’m trying to do. From third grade until my freshman year of high school I never read unless it was for school. I didn’t write either. I still don’t- at least not for fun. I was severely depressed in middle school, due to the extreme isolation. I was online schooled for all 3 years of middle school because of bullying and stress I experienced in elementary school. Covid hit in my seventh-grade year. I was already struggling in every way a middle school girl locked in the house could. My social interaction was confined to social media, Instagram specifically, which damaged me even more.
We moved to Washington state in 2021. I got better mentally, and mom said the color came back to my skin. Being locked in the house during formative years has made it borderline impossible to make friends to this day. Despite my need to escape, I didn’t read. Regardless of how much I wanted knowledge or beauty, I didn’t read. I have so many unread books sitting in my closet. I hope I feel inspired to write again. I hope I turn to the world of words for comfort, instead of my phone. For the sake of beauty, knowledge, and escaping, I hope I can become the girl with the big hair and a book again. In honor of that, I would like to leave you with a poem from The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems:
