Author's story of coping after a wildfire resonates with community affected by latest LA-area fires On a quiet summer evening in June 1990, Pico Iyer sat in his family home in Santa Barbara, California, when suddenly, he was surrounded by walls of flames five stories high.
Eight months after the fire, Iyer took his friend’s suggestion to stay for a few days at the New Camaldoli Hermitage, a Benedictine monastery nestled in the Santa Lucia Mountains of Big Sur, California.
Thirty-four years after that conflagration turned his life upside down, Iyer returned to Southern California to share how it transformed his life, nudging him toward what he now values — simplicity, silence, solitude and love.
In 1990, Iyer, then 33, an author and columnist for Time magazine, grabbed his mother’s aging cat and his latest manuscript, jumped in his car and tried to flee the fire.
“Moving into that tiny apartment didn’t seem like a hardship and being without a car and cell phone actually seems like a luxury,” Iyer said.
