The Ghosts of Commune's Past
Chicago | September 23, 2025
I woke up with my heart beating out of my chest. I rolled over in the dark, listening to the man that I love breathing. I listened to my body, trying to solve why I was so terrified. Tears leaked down from my eyes and puddled in my ears as I stared at the ceiling.
I sat up. The words were screaming inside my head, so loud they could not be ignored. So, here I sit, staring through the window of the hotel room in the city that I called home for over a decade, watching the sun slowly light up the skyscrapers around me. Memories flitting across my mind in no particular order, each with their own pain, their own feelings.
My heart hurts. This surprises the hell out of me.
And so, I reach for my laptop and let the words pour out of me, trying to make sense of them and put them in some kind of order. It’s how I survive. How I’ve survived for nearly thirty years, as you know if you’ve read my book, Girl Hidden.
In the book I sort of skimmed over the inner-city commune, for many reasons. I didn’t want to give them any real space, I think. Or I was scared? I don’t know. But today, I’m going back. I’m going to walk by the street where I lived and see the place that I called home, that I thought would heal me. And I guess…. I thought that with the incredible amount of therapy that I have done over the last fifteen years since I left that I was….good? I’m okay? It doesn’t bother me in my daily life, right? So, I should be good. Right?
My body wildly disagrees, as noted by having to run to the bathroom every twenty minutes and the inordinate amount of anti-nausea meds that I’ve taken since last night.
So I guess, here we go: I’m going to try to sort out my thoughts and feel my feelings and I’m bringing you along for the ride.
Buckle up, Buttercup.
* * *
When I first moved into the inner-city commune, Jesus People USA (affectionately known as JPUSA) it was a miserably hot summer in Chicago. I lived on the second floor of the Chelsea Hotel which is where JPUSA is located. Each hotel room has been renovated in the most cost effective (read: cheap) way into either family rooms -typically with loft beds- kids rooms, or “single brothers/sisters” rooms. 220 was a single sister room with a twin loft bed and a Captains bunk bed with drawers underneath. It shared a bathroom with the sister's room next door in 221.
The room had one window, plastic mattresses that felt like they were once filled with some form of cotton that had turned into one giant lump. There was one window that used to be painted shut and took all of my strength to open. Outside the window there was an eight foot roof top that extended the reach of the lobby below. There was no screen. But having the window open and the door open allowed some form of breeze to waft through the room. During the day it was about the temperature of a smallish giant breathing on you, but it at least made the nighttime bearable.
Each floor of the building was carpeted with floral carpet that I assume came with the building as it was not only styled in the vibe of the early 1900’s but it looked to have been worn and ripped up over many years. Duct tape covered the biggest holes, a temporary fix that added to the ambiance.
The walls were bitter white on each floor and the doors (which did indeed have the original number plaques still firmly attached to them) were painted in whatever color most matched the carpeting. The second floor’s color of choice was a deep burgundy.
The building was shaped like a giant “U” with the tips pointed toward the street so you had to enter through glass doors down the deep gash in the building to a second set of glass doors and into the lobby.
I know this is kind of a lot, but the layout of the building is relevant, I promise.
On the second floor I was nestled about halfway down the left side of the “U”. At the bottom of each corner of the “U” was a stairwell on the inside and a deluxe-sized corner room on the outside. And on the second floor, in the corner room lived an older couple (I say “older” but I’m older now than they were then - so maybe early 40’s?), Karen and Mike.
Karen was a larger than life black woman with shoulder length locks, a laugh that could shake the world and a hug that would hold you in a way that made you feel like you could survive anything. Mike, a skinny, quiet white guy with long sale-and-pepper hair that was always messily pulled back into a low ponytail had a lot of health issues and mostly kept to himself around me, which was okay with me since he just sort of made me uncomfortable. But that’s a story for another time.
You could not get to the stairs without passing Karen’s doorway, and she lived with that door open, night and day, just sort of keeping an eye on the place. Nosy? Maybe. But it always felt safer when you knew Karen was on watch.
I can’t tell you how much I missed her this morning. I have not thought about her in years, but this morning, I missed her in an overwhelming way.
I miss her laugh, her passion for the community that she lived in. I miss her gently - and not so gently - looking out for me. I miss her large, strong hands clapping at church as she jammed out to worship. She believed - like, really believed - in the commune. She believed that living there was a choice, and that choice would surely save the world. She believed that raising her kids there was the best thing that she could do for them. And she believed that music could feed the soul.
There was always - ALWAYS - music blaring out of her room; and it was usually music that I had never heard. The vibrant sounds of Yolanda Adams, Bebe and Cece Winans, Anointed, Kirk Franklin and Grace & Glory (JPUSA’s mostly-all-white-black-gospel-choir) wafted down the hallway and if Karen spotted you, you were stuck; it was time to dance. And I mean, DANCE.
Growing up in a predominately white small town in the south, going to lily-white churches all my life I had rarely even seen a black person, except in movies. And here was Karen, big as a life I never knew existed, lovingly forcing me into a dance off just because I had the audacity to want to go downstairs for breakfast.
But when she looked at you, she saw you…and she saw through you. And she would know what you needed, instantly. Maybe you needed to sit in her big leather couch with music turned low and talk and cry. Maybe you needed a giant hug that would shove your soul back into your body. Or maybe, you need to stomp with Kirk Franklin under florescent hallway lights on crumbling carpet where the cement showed through in spot.
Now, nearly thirty years later, I look back at that time when I was nineteen, traumatized and scared of literally everything and…I couldn’t tell you anything about her life. I don’t know her story, how she ended up at JPUSA, how she met her husband, when she got married, or what her story was. For a moment I felt wildly self-centered, which is, ya know, every teenager ever, so I give grace for that. But also, I think, for Karen, that wasn’t important. She wasn’t going to share her story with every random kid that wandered in or out of the commune. But she was damn sure going to love on you if you were in her eyeline, if you lived in her corner of the world.
And this morning, I am so so grateful for her. I hope however and wherever her life leads her that she knows that for the few months that I lived in room 220, she quietly - and loudly - changed my life, challenged my biases and taught me that dance, more than anything, could change the world.
Seattle | March 12, 2025: Update
It’s taken me a ridiculous amount of time to write this update. I have pondered off and on over the last few months just why, exactly, I don’t want to write about - or post - about this. Was I scared? No, not really. Proud? I mean, sort of. Busy? Sure, why not. But honestly, I think I have just been…I don’t know…basking in the finality of the experience.
Last September, the man that I love and I took the “L” train from downtown Chicago to The Green Mill Lounge to listen to the swingin’ sounds of The Chicago Cellar Boys, have a drink or two and dance our butts off. The music was hopping, the drinks were terrible and the dancing was absolutely dreamy.
By the time the band wound down it was after midnight. As we stepped outside the weather had cooled to a balmy 70 degrees, the streets were mostly quiet and there was a soft fog that had rolled in from nearby Lake Michigan.
I was shaking. It was time.
We started walking towards Wilson Avenue, on our way to JPUSA. I kept thinking that I could turn back any time. What if I saw someone I knew? And worse, what if they saw me?
Suddenly, in the midst of a building panic attack, a random memory resurfaced, and funny enough, it had nothing to do with my life in the commune.
One of my favorite authors and a tiktok creator that I have followed for years is Jaysea Lynn. (Go check her out - she’s hilarious.) She does sketches about souls that have passed on, gotten their paradise and chosen to work at hell’s Hellp Desk. One of funnier characters, Sharkie, is talking to a newer member of the Hellp Desk, Ruggy, who needed to make an important phone call to the incomparable Betty White.
Ruggy is scared to make the call and states that she doesn’t believe in herself enough to take that step. Sharkie says, “what have we been working on?”
Ruggy replies, quietly, “my confidence.”
Sharkie says, “and you’re doing great! You’ve got this. I believe in you.”
Ruggy responds, “okay, but you’re not always going to be here!”
And Sharkie says, “well, if I’m not physically next to you, just imagine me next to you….with a bat.” (here’s the full reel)
That final note of encouragement from a made-up character in a shark onesie kept playing over and over in my head as we walked. My heart slowly stopped trying to climb out of my throat and my hands stopped shaking as we turned left down Wilson Avenue.
The first thing that I noticed were all of the changes; new buildings had gone up, new sidewalks were put in, better street lights - someone had been investing, however slightly, in Uptown. The church where I was married to my first husband was still there, the stonework softly gleaming under the street lamps. Of course, the McDonald’s was still on the corner of Wilson and Sheridan. The diner was still on the opposite corner, though it had also gotten a glow up and some new paint. And the tiny beauty supply still stood in the same spot with windows full of goodies.
The smell still lingered, though it was less overpowering. Uptown always had a sort of stench; it smelled of old grease, steam from the sewers, the wet smell of Lake Michigan just a few blocks away and the sickly sweet smell that I had come to associate with poverty. The local unhoused population was still around, though with the impending gentrification, many of them had moved - or been moved - out of sight.
We stopped across the street from the Chelsea Hotel. I could hear the familiar hum of cars far away on Lakeshore Drive. The old blue awning had been removed and the front of the building had been ever so slightly updated. I could see through the two sets of glass front doors that the front desk overnight person was busy on their laptop.
I quietly filled my strong, steady husband in on the changes and what I was feeling and how my body was screaming at me to run and hide, but hey, Sharkie was right behind me….”with a bat.”
At The Green Mill Lounge.
Chasing the ghosts away….
I recorded a short video and that was just…that. It was done. I had stood in front of the building that had been my home for over a decade, where I was married, had a devastating affair, and left (well, to be honest, I was so mentally broken at the time, I was physically carried out of) more than fifteen years ago. I saw it again, and I was okay. They were just people. Mostly broken, some faithful, many controlling, but human. Just humans doing what humans do.
Even though being in that space again was truly one of the hardest things I have ever done, I’m so glad that I did it. I was able to reclaim both the city that I loved, and the space that I am allowed to take up there.
I feel like that chapter of my life is finally over. There’s closure. And I am free.
“Ms Gibbs writes with such emotional honesty. She brings compassion to her young self and her siblings and a true search to find why the adults in her life are relentless in their chaos and cruelty. This really resonated with me and I think anyone who grew up in addiction, mental illness and abuse will recognize the struggle. It is so redemptive to see this child make it to adulthood and bring the family she fought so hard for with her. A tender and heartbreaking read that ends with beautiful redemption.”
— Sarah S.
“This book is so good. There were a few parts I had to stop reading because it made me cry. I heard about this book from a podcast. The book is better than I thought it would be. I loved the part about the mistletoe, I heard stories about people doing that. I just loved this book.”
— Ralph B.
—
At the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains sits the small farm towns of Rockwell, Sugar Loaf and Liledoun, North Carolina. A large family struggles to survive the chaotic nature of the family head: their mother, a terrifying blend of rage, disappointment, and religious command. Her husband follows sheepishly behind, a monster of his own kind.
And then there’s young Jesse: unwanted from conception but kept as a pawn for her mother’s bidding. Her life is a tale of growing up with no one to count on but herself.
A story of southern hills, a mother’s neglect, fireflies, kidnapping, birth, death, and the taste of sweet mulberries ripened by the sun. Jesse is a girl, hidden, who becomes a woman, discovered.
