The Story: Geologist
Peter Polito
The Story consists of six vignettes describing a small part about how each scent came to be. We want you to know more about us—we believe personal connections are the key to understanding people and understanding people is the key to joy. Consider this one small way in which we can connect with you.
Geologist
Steeply dipping beds of alternating sandstone and mudstone, near Devil's Slide, south of Pacifica, CA.
I slinked through high school and the first few years of college. Nothing really interested me and nothing motivated me. After nearly flunking out my freshman year, I returned home and enrolled at Palomar, a junior college in north San Diego County. It was there that I was introduced to Dr. Spear and Dr. Spear introduced me to Geology. For the first time, I wanted to learn.
I chased a girl to San Francisco, and out of nothing more than convenience, I enrolled at San Francisco State University intent on completing a BS in geology. There, Dr. Leonard Sklar shared with me his love for geomorphology and I was hooked. I spent the next five years completing two degrees in the field of geomorphology. I spent weekends in the Marin Headlands, all along the peninsula, and in the lab. I spent summers working in the Sierra Nevada, Fossil Creek, the Sangre de Cristo Range, and the Henry Mtns. I dug deep holes on steep hillsides to get samples that would be dated to better understand soil production. I counted rocks in ice cold rivers until I couldn't feel my fingers, to better understand sediment transport in rivers. I counted lichen patches on bare sandstone knobs, in 115+ heat to better understand landscape evolution. Yes, I did learn a lot, but diving deeply into a science teaches you so much more about how little you know. Once again, the theme of how small I am and my own insignificance dominated. I loved it.
One consistent attribute of all the fieldwork I had the good fortune to participate in was the tangibility of the earth. It sounds ridiculous but there is something about this work that tapped into the primality of life. The smells—loamy earth, rich soil, trees, pollen, rushing water, bare rock—each of them distinct, yet somehow similar. Even now, if I catch a whiff of something similar, I am transported back to those lovely places.
When I set out to build up the nested aromas in the Geologist I wanted to tap into that primality of life. I wanted the smells emanating from this family of products to take one outside, putting you in a forest, on a hillslope, atop a mountain, in a river. For many of us, we live a decidedly urban existence. The longer I have lived this life the more I feel a part of me hides away, filed away in the recesses of my brain, until I've forgotten. Geologist is meant to be the wake-up call to get you and I and our hearts and our minds into nature, where they can feel free, even if it is just for a moment.