i thought i was a failure then geology happened

the reason behind my... rock music 🌋🎶

Good Thursday, old friends and new. Here begins the brand-spanking new newsletter format now that, hold your breath, I WAS FUNDED BY THE GEOLOGIST’S ASSOCIATION TO MAKE MY GEOLOGY ALBUM. Cue the party noises. Cue the freaking party noises!!!

If you’ve been a newsletter day 1-er you’ll know that I have been writing and sharing my songs about volcanoes, sediment, earthquakes and raindrop fossils for a year now. And now it’s time to get in the studio and bring them this project to life. Over the next several months I am going to take you on this journey of making an album (something I’ve never done before).

I’m not going to lie, I am equal parts excited and terrified.

I’m starting this process by detailing to you how and why I got here: ‘Why geology?’ is a question that comes up all the time when I talk about this project. Well, it begins with the worst zoom call of my life…

“29 and nothing to show for it,” she says.

My stomach drops and I write it down in my notebook because, you know, it’s probably worth noting down? I am holding back tears as we continue the session — a mentorship call with a figure in the music business who is telling me, right now, that I have Wasted Years of My Life.

Okay, so I’m 29 and I don’t have any music on Spotify. So I’m 29 and went to uni, got sick for half a year, moved to Canada, did nothing, came back, worked in hospitality, moved to London, played some gigs, felt shy, got a boyfriend, stopped writing songs entirely, worked in hospitality, broke up with boyfriend, started writing again, recorded an EP with a producer who is charged me £175 per session and it’s been two years and we haven’t finished even one song yet, I’m 29 and it’s the pandemic and I’m supposed to be a musician and I haven’t got anything to show for it and oh yes, I have Wasted Years of My Life.

It hurts because she has a point.

After the call finishes I cry for two hours. Days later I start thinking about a new project. It could be called, ‘Wasted Time,’ I think. Maybe I could interview people I know who have also had periods of time where they felt like life was going nowhere? I email some friends and we talk for hours about illness, depression, career choices. It’s good but it all feels heavy. I can’t find the hope.

One day I get recommended a book: ‘Timefulness’ by Marcia Bjornerud. I am into Deep Time and Long Termism now. You know, tree rings and hundred-year clocks and stuff. This seems like a good book to pick up.

What I don’t know is that this is a book about geology.

In a short series of pages, my anxiety about wasted years starts to wash away. How old is the earth? How many versions of life has it cycled through now? You mean to tell me there were millions and millions of years where nothing was happening, yet everything was happening?

“Time vanishes, while rocks persist."

It was enough to hook me in. Geology sounded like the perfect antidote to worrying constantly about time slipping out of my hands. There was something hugely comforting about the fact that the world was very, very, very old.

In the weeks to come I stumbled across an American educator from Ellensburg, Washington called Nick Zentner. As I whiled away days of furlough back home in my parent’s house, I watched his Geology 101 lectures every morning with a cup of tea. I took notes.

I want to tell everyone, EVERYONE about things like Hawai’i being part of a long chain of volcanic islands being constantly puffed out of the ocean and buried again, dragged up by tectonic plates as far as Alaska. I want to tell everyone about the Juan de Fuca plate and Yellowstone hotspot. I want to tell everyone that there was a billion years on the planet where nothing major apparently happened and I want to tell everyone that rocks are the most dynamic things on earth because they are constantly changing. I want to tell everyone this because makes me feel better about life, and surely it will make everyone else feel better, too?

How could I do it?

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Next week I’ll share more about my journey into geology, and how I wrote one of the first songs that began this project. And if you’re reading this also with a rock collection on your shelf… how did you get into geology?

It’s National Poetry Writing month (for… all nations, apparently) and I’ve been enjoying writing poems over on my Instagram. Since we’re talking about time, here’s one about nostalgia for a band I loved dearly as a teenager:

Take a look at the newsletter and song I wrote about the phenomenon of loving your favourite band at sixteen and the bittersweet feeling that comes along with it.

Finally, a reminder that I run a monthly small group for creatives called Swoopee, where we talk about our projects, bounce around ideas and cheer each other on. I am planning a date for the next session and if you are interested please fill out this form. We normally meet around 6pm on Monday or Sunday, which is a good time if you are in the UK or US.

Have a great Easter weekend, go eat an egg or chase a rabbit or something. Possibly have some chocolate.

Talk next week!

🌈 Olivia