✍️ Why I Am Writing Memoir of a Wandering Spirit

Some stories don’t announce themselves. They settle quietly in the body — not forgotten, just waiting.
Memoir of a Wandering Spirit is one such story. A narrative shaped not by tidy chronology, but by memory — restless, longing, and full of the traces left by people, places, and moments that refused to fade.

This is my story — as I remember it, and as I have come to interpret it. It’s written in the third person, because at some point in the telling, I became Kacper — a version of myself through whom the journey flows more freely. Some details may be blurred or refracted by time. But the essence is true. The emotions are true. The events, while sometimes softened or rearranged, are rooted in lived experience.

The book is not a collection of facts. It’s a map made of textures: the softness of a hospital blanket, the grit of stale bread on a border train, the weight of silence after an unanswered letter, the squeak of school shoes on cold corridors. I write from photographs, from journals, from physical memory — and from that place where truth sometimes distorts itself to let something deeper rise.

To protect privacy and honour intimacy, I have changed the names of many people along the way. If you find a shadow of yourself here, please know it is written with care, gratitude, and respect.

The memoir traces a journey that begins in a small Polish village and winds through hospitals and classrooms, refugee camps, war zones, and wide, uncertain skies. It is the story of a child who was told to lie still — and didn’t. And of a man who kept returning to the places where pain met purpose, and sorrow met grace.

Below, you’ll find a summary of the first ten chapters. I’ll begin updating this space more regularly as the writing unfolds — with reflections, photographs, extracts, and fragments that didn’t make it into the manuscript, but still insist on being remembered.

🧭 Chapter Summaries (1–10)

Chapter 1: The Road to Zakopane

Kacper is born in Biegonice, near Nowy Sącz. His early life is filled with family warmth, but also illness — first mysterious, then increasingly serious. Weekly trips to Kraków’s Prokocim hospital become routine, where plaster casts are applied to his legs. The car rides, pain, and comfort of the radio etch themselves into his childhood. Eventually, he’s sent to Konstancin near Warsaw, where doctors reveal the severity of his spinal condition. There, he feels deeply alone and witnesses both the unfamiliar (like meeting a Black child for the first time) and the terrifying. Zakopane is the final referral — a clinic with a reputation for miracles. Martial Law is declared. Hope and fear walk hand in hand.

Photos:
Click here for pictures related to this chapter: Early childhood.

Chapter 2: The Operation

The surgery arrives with little warning. Kacper is wheeled in, scared but ready. The operation is long and risky. He wakes to a new body and a country under Martial Law. What follows is pain, infection, disorientation — and recovery. An ambulance ride turns dramatic when soldiers try to stop them. Kacper has to learn how to sit, breathe, and walk again. But he is growing taller, breathing deeper. He watches the snow fall from the hospital window, senses something unfolding far beyond him. The child is changing, and so is Poland.

Chapter 3: The Return

Kacper returns home to Nowy Sącz — healed, but changed. He must now learn how to live outside the hospital. School feels foreign. Friends are unsure how to treat him. His older brother, Jurek, becomes his protector and translator of the world. Family stories take centre stage — his father’s post-war struggles, his mother’s fierce resilience, the myths of Biegonice. A plastic body cast is replaced by a cautious freedom. Kacper learns English, excels in geography, and discovers a passion for the wider world. He dreams of London. Of somewhere else. Of more.

Chapter 4: The Years of Becoming

Secondary school brings both fear and surprise. Kacper is accepted by classmates and protected by his teachers. He excels academically, especially in languages. He joins a local language centre, where volunteers from abroad broaden his horizons. Through letters exchanged with Seraphina, a penfriend from the Seychelles, he explores love, loss, and identity. Family trips, student exchanges, the shock of a classmate’s suicide — all shape his sense of self. His mother briefly moves to Canada to work, bringing back not just money but dignity. These years are slow but powerful. Kacper begins to believe he might belong — somewhere.


Chapter 5: The Dream That Almost Was

Kacper finishes school and begins working at PolTransCom as a translator. It’s an unglamorous but practical start — he earns a salary, translates tedious documents, and navigates the daily routines of office life with an oddball cast of characters. The work is tolerable, but his heart is elsewhere.

A short trip to Germany offers a taste of something freer. Later, he travels to London with dreams stitched inside his coat lining. There, he attends a trade event where he glimpses Princess Diana — a surreal moment that starkly contrasts with his own financial uncertainty and the grimy hostel beds he sleeps in.

He is accepted to the University of York, but funding proves elusive. A British contact, John Brown, had promised financial help, only to vanish. With no money and time running out, he returns to Poland briefly, devastated but still unwilling to let go.

London becomes a place of despair. Back in the UK on borrowed time, Kacper is forced to live rough — at one point sleeping under a staircase at Earl’s Court. His student visa application fails, and he falls through every bureaucratic crack. Still, he teaches private lessons, saves pennies, and refuses to give up. Just as all hope fades, friends offer a mattress and emotional shelter. That kindness — offered in a small flat — is enough. It saves him. He decides to move forward. The dream almost dies. But doesn’t.

Photos:
Picture from Germany, while working for PolTransCom.
Glimpses of living in London, when things were really difficult.


Chapter 6: Kraków, and the Suit That Didn’t Fit

To stay afloat while waiting for something better, Kacper enrols in university in Kraków, choosing diplomacy and international relations — a field that sounds respectable but feels hollow. He arrives wearing a second-hand suit that doesn’t fit, both physically and metaphorically. That image lingers as the central metaphor for this chapter.

Kraków itself is romantic and moody, but he feels lost within it. The classes are formal, dry, and disconnected from the real world. He teaches English privately to survive, floating through a life that feels borrowed. There are occasional sparks of joy — walks through the Old Town, a well-timed joke from a student — but mostly, he is biding time.

He remains haunted by his time in London: the generosity of his hosts, the failures of institutions, the harshness of rejection. These unspoken struggles press against the walls of Kraków’s classrooms. Ultimately, he realises that Kraków was never meant to hold him. It’s a place of waiting, not of becoming. So, again, he prepares to move on.

Photos:
A trip to Venice with Mum and Kacper's 'adopted sister'.

Chapter 7: Where the Windmill Turns

Kacper joins DNS, a radical international school in Denmark. He meets a cast of unforgettable classmates — Agnieszka, Mikkel, Eli, Kurt — and a whole world of shared values and noisy debates. They grow vegetables, clean toilets, study global issues, and prepare for long trips to India and Africa. He finds purpose, love, and challenge in equal measure. The school breaks him open and puts him back together. It’s the first place that feels like chosen family.

Photos:
Saving up period while studying.

Chapter 8: Through the Heart of India

India is overwhelming. Kacper volunteers at Mitraniketan, a Gandhian rural centre in Kerala, and is struck by poverty, resilience, kindness, and contradictions. He travels by train, learns about caste, drinks coconut water, and listens to village children’s dreams. It’s not paradise — it’s difficult and dazzling, all at once. Other DNS students appear along the way. Together, they share meals and stories. India marks him forever — not for what it is, but for what it awakens.

Photos:
The trip around India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey.

Chapter 9: Borders and Hostages

Kacper and Silja begin the overland return journey through Pakistan. Outside Lahore, something goes wrong — they are drugged, perhaps kidnapped. The episode is foggy, frightening. Rescued by Catholic monks and reconnected with their group, they carry new fear. The journey through Pakistan continues with emotional caution. The Wagah border crossing into India is deeply symbolic — flags, spectacle, and fragility. They move westward through cities and deserts. Something has shifted. Nothing feels guaranteed anymore.

Photos:
The trip around India, Pakistan and Turkey.

Chapter 10: Through the Silk and the Stone

The route back to Europe leads through Iran and Turkey. Kacper observes veiled women, snow-dusted mountains, and market chaos. He feels the weight of history in each ruin, each checkpoint. They cross into Istanbul — the symbolic bridge to Europe. There, they part ways. Kacper boards a regular bus back to Kraków. No flags, no cameras, no ceremony. Just a return. But he is no longer the boy who left. The story is still unfolding.

Photos:
The trip around India, Pakistan and Turkey.

🔜 What Comes Next

And there is still much more to come.

As the chapters move into adulthood, the accounts will deepen — not only because the events are more recent, but because they involve choices made with full awareness. These next parts will draw heavily from my work as a humanitarian — a path that has shaped the very architecture of my being. You will find stories from the field, from remote villages to vast cities; from makeshift shelters to negotiation tables; from lonely hotel rooms to war zones that changed everything.

But it is not just about work. These chapters will also explore the ties that bind — love, friendship, family, grief. There will be moments of quiet happiness, and others of pain or tragedy. Some stories may be difficult to read, and a few perhaps uncomfortable or controversial. I won’t shy away from them. They’re part of the truth I carry.

Importantly, while I do reflect on the world — on justice, power, inequality, and belonging — I do so from my own narrow window. These are my thoughts, shaped by the experiences I’ve had. I do not pretend they are universally correct. I am not trying to convince anyone. I’m simply offering a view — personal, imperfect, and entirely my own. Some will disagree. Some may turn away. But for those who stay, I hope something resonates.

This page will also become a space for small things that matter:
✍️ stories that didn’t make it into the chapters,
📚 glimpses into the writing process and its technical chaos,
🎒 anegdotes from behind the scenes,
📷 and photos that breathe life into forgotten corners.

Thank you for walking alongside me on this journey.
There’s still a long way to go — and I look forward to sharing it with you.

Tags: #MemoirOfAWanderingSpirit, #FromNowySaczToTheWorld, #WorldJourneys, #UK, #MemoirWriting, #NowySacz, #DNS, #Kerala, #Mitraniketan, #Venice, #Italy, #Warsaw, #Krakow, #London, #Biegonice, #Ulfborg, #Lahore, #Turkey, #Pakistan, #Iran, #Tehran, #Denmark, #Poland, #India