Jess

"How did Jess get up to Manchester?" "By train." "So she went through Birmingham, then?"

Jess was decked out in her finest clothes.

We talk to Jess Yeomans, one of two women tugboat captains in New York Harbor about the challenges she faces in everyday work and the art she creates when not skippering boats.

Today is the 14th of January of 2025. It was night at Time Hortons café. I ate Sea Salt Potato Wedges with Wildberry Hibiscus Lemonade Quencher. Joban the South Asian was my vendor. In the morning, I had a couple or more cups of Green Tea with Oat Milk, which, someone expressed, "tastes like ice cream." It was night at Starbucks café. I ate two Belgian Liège Waffles. The Brown Sugar Oat Cortado interestingly tasted like jackfruit. I was going to tell the Japanese-Anglo hybrid Chris the barista or Jess the Anglo barista. Money is just an inhibitor, sometimes. Money is poverty, sometimes. Life should always be sensual, a sensory wonderland. Life is ephemeral, full of fleeting experiences. Do I believe in the Akashic Records, the memory compendium about everything? The following day of the 15th, I saw Hans the Netherlander in his motorized wheelchair at Tim Hortons. We sat near the sun-drenched bay window, as we chatted and ate Sea Salt Potato Wedges. I was drinking Orange Pekoe tea with Oat Milk for a change.

‘Now then Kit,’ said Mr Parkinson, ‘look sharp! Help Jess up. Where has she got to?’ ‘Here I am!’ said Jessamy breathlessly as “helped” rather to vigorously from behind by Kit, she arrived on her knees on the floor of the dog cart.

‘It’s almost as if we’ve gone silly with happiness,’ said Marcus two days later. ‘Everyone in the house going round grinning like a lot of Cheshire Cats! The family I mean.’ ‘And Jess,’ said Kitto quickly. ‘Oh well, Jess is as good as family,’ said Fanny comfortably. Jessamy said nothing, but she looked up quickly and her smile would have rivalled any Cheshire Cat.

That's because officials say government systems can't currently incorporate the diacritic marks — the accents and symbols used to change the meaning and pronunciation of words — that Jess H̓áust̓i considers an essential part of her Indigenous surname.

Haukes haue about theyr legges gesses made of lether moste comonly, some of silke which should no lenger but that the knottes of them should appere in ye myddes of the left hande betwene the longe fynger and the leche fynger bicause the lewnes should be fastened to them with a payre of tyrettes, whiche tyrettes should rest vpon the lewnes and not vpon gesses, for hangyng and fastyng vpon trees when she fleyth […]

I am that cedar; shake me not too much; And you the eagles; soar ye ne’er so high, I have the jesses that will pull you down;

[…] If I do prove her haggard, Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings, I’ld whistle her off and let her down the wind, To pray at fortune.