Chapter four · Michigan · 1999–2004
I chose the family and they chose me. Then my first-ever flight removed the route home, and I learned to build a new map one road, relationship and coffee bean at a time.
How to read the pictures: the Bitmoji are visual shorthand for ideas, moods and transitions. They are not a literal photographic record.
The Michigan Coffee Revolution
When I arrived, I still voluntarily drank instant coffee. Jeff Punch had a Melitta bean-to-cup machine that produced whole jugs of the dark nectar on demand—and he was a proper coffee guide.
He taught young Ree about water temperature, bean quality, grind size and the many small variables between “coffee” and good coffee. I rapidly became the coffee snob I remain today.
For years, instant survived as an emergency measure. Then somebody invented coffee bags. Now there is no excuse: an OEX stove and an AeroPress mean I can brew properly in the car.
Part one
01
I had never been on a plane before the flight to Michigan. When I landed, I felt derailed. For the first time in my life, there was no way to get home by simply tracing my steps backwards.
I had to build a completely new map: first the trunk roads to school, downtown and the shops; then the shortcuts, landmarks, terrain and geography that gradually turned “somewhere in America” into somewhere I knew.
02
The Punch family lived in a comfortable, self-built home in Ann Arbor. They had two girls, aged six and eight, and a six-month-old boy. Our exchanged albums had introduced the lives on each side of the ocean; daily routines now filled in the details.
I enjoyed a privileged life with a lovely family. I learned an enormous amount and grew more confident inside a home whose systems worked differently from the ones I had known.
03
On the longest days I cared for the children from 7 am until 6 pm. Other days were shorter, depending on which parent took over. Because both parents were doctors, I also covered nights when they were on call.
Margaret, in particular, became like an older sister. When I started dating a woman, she guided me through coming out and recruited her gay best friend to give me a kind of pep talk. She also taught me the secret of a good handshake and confident introduction—a system I still use.
04
Michigan recycling was brilliant. Shops had machines that returned ten cents for every bottle or can. I conscientiously fed everything into them and cashed it in.
The principle was obvious: make the desired behaviour easy, visible and worthwhile. I thought Britain should do something similar. Twenty years later, the UK still does not have a properly workable system.
Part two
05
I had met Ron online the year before and planned to visit him. I never made it down to Beaumont, Texas, during that trip, but the friendship was not dependent on completing one journey.
We stayed in touch. I watched his children and grandchildren grow up remotely. We now chat every week on WhatsApp, and he and his wife plan to visit next year.
06
Mum and I both had a steep learning curve around time differences. “A convenient time to call” depended entirely on which side of the Atlantic was doing the calculation.
Connection was not ambient. Someone had to remember the hour, find the equipment and deliberately show up.
07
Video chat was limited. Phone cards cost about $20 and offered international calls for roughly ten cents a minute. Once a month, I bought a card and called home until the credit ran out.
If people answered, they received Ree time that month. If they did not, the communication window had closed until the next card.
08
Yahoo chat rooms gave way to MSN Messenger, then Facebook and WhatsApp. Years later, when I became security-conscious about Meta, Mum even used Signal.
The platform changed. The important system was our willingness to learn the next tool so the relationship could keep travelling.
Part three
09
Michigan was not only the Punch family’s home or my workplace. It became a base from which I could travel, camp, cross state lines and turn distant names into places with roads, weather and memories.
10
My final year involved an insane amount of travel, including a road trip from Ann Arbor to the Grand Canyon. We went out through Kansas and Denver, then came home through Oklahoma, Texas and the Missouri mountains.
AAA maps helped us identify campsites close to the highway when we were ready to stop. One night we timed it badly and arrived after dark—then discovered woods full of Missouri young people who spent their weekends white-water rafting.
Our system worked. Using headlights and starlight, we had camp established and dinner grilling within half an hour. Then came a film on the laptop and cold Mike’s Hard Lemonade from the cooler. Good times.
11
Mum supported me in the ways she could: sending money, visiting as often as possible and sending Adam when she could not afford to come with him. I supported her in the ways I could. We have always helped one another grow.
I was determined to help Mum reach happily ever after. I taught her how to make real friends, and she now has a supportive social life with lovely women. I still wish I could help her find love, but after Dad and Ian she is not interested. Twice burned; romance now firmly declined.
12
When Mum visited, we went adventuring: Niagara Falls, Chicago, New York and beyond. I opened her horizons while she made the effort required to remain present in mine.
She signed up for the internet and kept migrating through each new communication system. Support was not always the same action; it was the repeated decision to find another workable route.
Part four
13
I met Heidi, who became like a sister. Her family became surrogate parents. They welcomed me into their lives, and I was deeply grateful for both the family connection and the lessons we shared.
14
I spent holidays with Heidi and her family. Chosen family was not a consolation prize or pretend version of the real thing. It was a relationship built through welcome, repetition and showing up.
15
Dating taught me that I could bat well above my grade. Pretty women liked Ree. This was useful information after years of uncertainty and limited opportunities to test the theory.
16
Some chaotic women were equally enthusiastic. I was not very good at spotting unhealthy dynamics back then, and I brought an unhealthy attachment style of my own.
The success of a relationship therefore depended enormously on whom I chose—and who chose me. Attraction was confirmed; calibration was still in development.
Part five
17
Dad learned I was gay from an auntie and rang to tell me off for not telling him myself. I had outsourced coming out to Dad to Simon because it felt like face-to-face information, not something to put in an email.
Simon had explained that I “played for the other team”. Dad had not understood. He spent the next few years making uncomfortable jokes while trying to be cool with it—which, awkwardness aside, I appreciated.
18
I took classes at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti and joined the Urban Teacher Training Program at Wayne County Community College—a route that could have prepared me to teach special education anywhere in the United States.
I was assessed so I could understand the process my students experienced. I was told I had neurodivergent traits, but “not enough for a diagnosis”. I concluded that I was simply a little ADHD, then carried on doing my thing and having an awesome time.
19
On a trip with a girlfriend to her friend’s wedding, I visited a casino on a Native American reservation with my last $10. Computer poker turned it into a total bankroll of more than $3,000. About $1,600 went to tuition, another $800 to books, roughly $250 to a massaging executive chair, $80 to dinner at a lovely restaurant recommended at the wedding, and another $50 or $60 to assorted treats. I banked around $200 and kept roughly $100 in cash for emergencies.
I followed that with wins on the Texas Hold’em machines when the new Detroit casino opened. The rule I had already taught Mum, Aunt Mary and my cousins still applied: decide what a good night out is worth, stick to that firm budget, pace yourself and never chase lost money.
20
The original Bitmoji was for an aunt who did not visit while I lived in America. We used calls and email instead. But the feeling applied to everybody: I miss people’s faces when I cannot see them. Face-to-face information is part of communication for me.
Mum made the effort to be visibly present—through visits, early internet, Facebook, WhatsApp and even Signal. We did not support one another identically. We each used what we could access to help the other grow.
I landed without a route home and built Michigan one road, one relationship and one system at a time.
The Michigan soundtrack
This playlist is the music from 1999–2004 that reached my life: the songs attached to Ann Arbor, family routines, friends, girlfriends, study, long roads and new confidence.
Follow my selection, or let your own memories and ears take you elsewhere.
Listen to Michigan · 1999–20042004
The map folds again
Michigan had given me chosen family, teaching experience, queer confidence, better coffee, bigger roads and proof that I could build a working life from scratch.
Next: Home Coming · 2005–2013