Jess Williamson writes her goodbyes in pencil

Photography by Jackie Lee Young Jess Williamson’s earliest memory is her sitting in the backseat of a car. Her mother was driving whilst her grandmother was in the passenger seat, and Dolly Parton came on the radio. As a little girl, it was her first time hearing Parton’s silvery twang, and she listened as her family effused over how much they loved Parton’s voice. “I’m going to be a singer like Dolly Parton when I grow up,” she declared to them, unquestioning. Decades later, in the bizarre dislocation of the pandemic, Williamson was behind the steering wheel driving alone through Texas, the glittering Austin skyline rolling past her window. Now a young woman, she was on the way home from mingling with a group of friends – one of them a relationship she was still heartbroken about ending – after having jumped at the chance to flee California and temporarily house-sit for friends. Her long-term affinity with Los Angeles was unravelling, and so too was her sense of who she was within it. She turned on the radio, and her song was playing. “I was just like, who am I? If I’m not that person’s girlfriend and I don’t live in Austin and LA feels weird, and I’m alone, where do I belong?” sh...