Natalia Naman Temesgen: Learning to deal with disaster

Terror is defined as “extreme fear,” or “the use of extreme fear to intimidate people, especially for political reasons.” I was a high school sophomore on September 11, 2001, and when our teacher interrupted her lesson to turn on the news, I was afraid.

I have family members in Queens, N.Y., and remember praying that none of them happened to be in Lower Manhattan that morning. The jammed phone lines panicked me when I tried to call them. Perhaps the worst feeling was the sense that none of the adults in the building were any less anxious, angry or afraid than we were that day.

I felt similarly on April 15, 2013. Alone in our apartment with my 3-week-old daughter, I was bombarded with text messages asking if I was all right. I turned on the news to find that a few train stops away, bombs had just exploded at the finish line of the Boston marathon. My husband was presumably even closer to the chaos at a Boston University building studying, but I had trouble reaching him on his phone. I heard on the news that police were blocking major roadways. I didn't know if he would be able to drive home. Nobody knew where the perpetrators were. Perhaps they were on the move, perhaps in our direction.

We got lost in our terror that Tuesday in 2001. From class to class, we fed ourselves the very things that scared us until we were emotionally frayed or incapacitated. The TV stayed on nearly all day as students and teachers alike gorged on replays of the planes flying into the towers, people covered in blood and debris, and pundits throwing around theories.

I did the same after the marathon bombings. Even after my husband arrived safely at home, we were stuck to the news as we watched them close in on the alleged perpetrator 10 minutes away from our apartment in a covered boat in Watertown. I recall lamenting that our baby had barely gotten a start in this world when something so frightening and violent was occurring right in her neighborhood.

Then something changed the tone. A friend asked about our safety, and how the baby was doing. I assured her we were safe and she was glad. She then told me to turn off the TV and put on some music instead. I did. Mozart, to be exact.

Did the facts change? No. Had the terror outside stopped? Hardly. But in our little apartment, we regained some perspective. And we were better equipped to serve each other, our newborn, and, by the next morning, our community.

Today, ISIS is perpetrating brutal murders as it carries out bombastic ethnic and religious cleansing in the Middle East. This makes me afraid.

I will not, however, watch videos of journalists' beheadings or feed on a diet of high-strung media pundits.

And I will not forget the power of Mozart. Or a quiet, calming breath. To be the change we wish to see in the world, we must each step out on faith, not fear.

Natalia Naman Temesgen is an independent correspondent. Contact her at nataliadian1@gmail.com or on Twitter @cafeaulazy.

This story was originally published September 6, 2014 at 10:02 PM with the headline "Natalia Naman Temesgen: Learning to deal with disaster."