It’s 5:24AM and a Monday morning, and I’m typing on this blog. I’ve started three versions of this blogpost, and deleted them. But it’s been fun, because it’s thoughts I needed to write down which enabled me to return to my email and actually finish a climate project.

I’ve been working on and off with Prof. Adam Aron from UCSD Green New Deal and Andrew Meyer from San Diego Audubon Society on an op-ed we would like to submit to the San Diego Union Tribune. If you know me in real life, you likely haven’t heard me stop talking about the Sea World July 4th fireworks that were out of control, and lead to many shorebirds including elegant terns washing dead ashore. The fireworks are bad for human health as well, which is why I got involved. You’ll hopefully see the op-ed this week and it’s really cool to co-author something with my two climate friends! Prof. Adam Aron and Andrew Meyer are like some of my favorite people in the world!

If you were in San Diego on July 4th, you probably remember where you were and who you were with. You likely remember the fireworks displays. I was with my daughter on our roof deck and watching the fireworks, and thinking a bit “they are a bit out of control” and sure enough the next day, all these elegant terns were documented on social media washed up dead on West Ski Island. That event, led us to investigate further into the hazards of fireworks which includes air pollution, noise pollution and actually heavy metals raining down on Mission Bay. I was fascinated to learn there is something called Firework Dust (FD) and Legacy Dust (LD) that continues to pollute the environment.

Personally, I’ve never taken my children near the fireworks because they don’t like the noise close up. My son when he was a toddler in Boston, had an uncontrollable crying episode over watching the fireworks while sitting on a stroller near the Charles River. I wasn’t there because we had the new preemie baby at home. It makes sense that small children would be adverse to fireworks up close. He probably helped ensure his own good neurodevelopment, because his father brought him straight home and he wasn’t exposed to the noise pollution, heavy metal pollution and particulate matter. Since then, we kind of avoid the entire thing.

So I was standing on the roofdeck with my daughter, and honestly we don’t really enjoy the fireworks that much. Maybe that tells us that those that enjoy the fireworks and the spectacle of it, we are too different. But the community will need to decide what’s best for the children.

For my child during the summer of sixteen, she was with me physically and safe. She was away from the lead, cadmium, barium and copper raining down on Mission Bay. She was away from the possibilities of fingers being blown off. I remember acutely as a resident physician, the orthopedic hand surgeons had to reattach fingers from mostly teenagers living in New Hampshire that were playing with fireworks. It seems kind of silly to let your children do that, or allow them to hang out with friends who would do that. But in the end, everyone raises your own children. I only get involved when it affects all children, and of course the elegant terns and biodiversity.

This summer has been so unexpectedly wonderful for our daughter. It wasn’t the summer she expected. There was no boy, no summer romance (thank goodness!). But there was so much art and learning. The one month California State Summer School for the Arts CSSSA was an intensive 6-day program that was pretty much from 8:30am to 9pm every day. She studied mostly ceramics and had a lot of studio time, but also studied figure drawing, photographer, print-making, arts and culture. She got to go to the Getty and Disneyland with her friends! We saw her just twice for brief snippets the entire month, and we saw lots of selfies. She would send me her “fit-checks” (yes it is a teen thing). She was on artistic fire, honestly. She produced two large ceramics pieces that will be included in her portfolio. I loved seeing them in the pictures she sent us, but honestly they are physically very impressive when you see them in real life! She’s really an amazing 16-year-old.

Then she went to a Vietnamese youth leadership advocacy camp, that is too complicated to explain, but I was able to accompany her on Saturday. She finally met her team that she’s worked with over the year. She’s being mentored by amazing Vietnamese-American women, and meaningfully contributing to human rights work. For a Harvard educated mother, I am floored at times what she has accomplished. I just follow along with her, and try to gently guide her. We had so much fun this last weekend with new friends and connections we made. This is her community as it was mine, and it’s changing and blending and we are there to be a part of it. Plus the food was amazing. And it was cool when she hugged her new friends and we said “maybe we’ll come to Paris next year for the European camps?” And honestly, that is definitely possible.

But she’s tucked back in her room and sleeping soundly this morning. I have to leave for clinic in two hours, and back to clinical work. But I am so grateful to have spent this hour with you writing down my thoughts.