Hello and welcome. This is Janice Hoffmann for the Claremont Courier, and thanks for taking a short break from your busy day to smile as you listen to the next installment of “Creative Mindfulness”. No worries. I’m not going to tell you to relax; I’m not going to tell you how to breathe. Mindfulness is simply looking at the current moment, from another perspective with judgment or rancor. Creative means that we apply this approach to topics that might surprise. Today’s contribution was recently published in the Courier and is entitled “Remembering the Grand Prix Fire”. Many Claremont residents have their own stories and, if you are on the website, I encourage you to go to Contact Us and share a thought or two.
The Grand Prix fire occurred eighteen years ago. Over 60 Claremonters lost their homes and numerous others had major damages. I was lucky and our home was spared with minor damage, but many of us still remember that night vividly. As a result of being evacuated in the middle of the night, my attitude towards packing to leaving home for a trip, was forever changed. My story employs an omniscient narrator who tells the story in third person, and eventually switches to present tense.
It is nightfall in late October, 2003, in a home in the city of Claremont, CA, the hillside neighborhood called Claraboya.

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