Weaving a sense of place in our story with Eva-Maria Smith, creator of MILK.
#05 INSIDER interview exploring home as a place of nurture, creativity and an anchor to our surroundings as the seasons turn.
I’m Lyndsay, mother, creative and storyteller with a background in interiors PR. Story & Thread. is a weekly letter exploring the intersection of creativity, mothering and the living world, with a home and a garden at the heart...
Please feel free to share parts of this newsletter that connect with you — here on Substack, on social media or I would love you to send it on to someone special to you.
“All the moving around has deepened my understanding of people’s stories, weaving the story of place into my own story”.
—Eva-Maria Smith.
Hi everyone
How are you all this week?
Last week I felt all the shimmers of light and buds of potential as the calendar turned to February, today it is raining cats and dogs and to be honest it’s been a challenging week. Perhaps a reminder that the seasonal transitions cannot be rushed and we must take care as we move forward. As always, I loved reading your comments — how many of you were feeling into the in-between as we move into late winter with a scattering of spring promises (which I am holding tightly in my hand).
Looking forward to spring proper, I am excited to announce that and I are dreaming up plans for a London-based creative gathering in April. It will take the form of a half-day retreat for writers who would like to both sit with other creatives and tend to their own inner embers, guided by seasonal ritual — a time to be held in your storytelling journey.
If this sounds inviting, please do save the date…10am-1.30pm on Saturday 20th April. We are confirming the final details before releasing tickets but if you would like to be first to know when the early bird tickets are available, click the button below to be added to the waitlist…
And back to today, welcome to the February instalment of the INSIDER series — a deep dive into home as a foundation of nurture and creativity, weaving a sense of place into our stories, providing an anchor to our surroundings as the seasons turn…
Meet
, mother, writer, photographer, breathwork facilitator and holistic coach. Eva is the founder of MILK publication here on Substack and its accompanying Milk & Coffee podcast. Eva’s writing is always filled with thoughtful musings on her inner and outer landscapes, coupled with inspiring imagery and a soft, tactile warmth to every word.Native to Germany and now living in the United States, I loved speaking to Eva about how she has brought aspects of each of her homes along with her. There is a beautiful intentionality behind her 1920s home in Oklahoma City and I feel heartened by her strong belief in really living in our homes, complete with their quirks and imperfections, rather than always striving to improve the places we live in…
Describe who you are and what you do.
I am Eva, earth daughter, mother to three and I tend to mothers, words and ceremonies.
Currently I write the newsletter
and host the podcast Milk & Coffee. My background is in photography and postpartum care and I see my calling in holding space and creating ritual and ceremony (especially for mothers) and while I have little time to do all that I am passionate about right now, I am proud to be the host of The Pause retreat — a grounded, bespoke retreat for mothers.
Where is home?
My house is in Oklahoma City, but home is in Bavaria, Southern Germany.
It is in the memory of my grandmother’s kitchen; it is touching my children’s soft hair; it is sitting with a friend over coffee, and reading in candlelight next to my husband.
What led you to move from Europe to the States?
The age old tale of girl falls in love with boy. My American husband was stationed in Germany with the United States Air Force and we met each other at a beerfest in Nuremberg. I consider myself lucky, that over the last 14 years we have managed to bridge cultural oceans and have grown together, but this could have gone wrong very easily. We had only known each other a few months and a few trips back and forth from Germany to the US before we applied for the fiancée visa.
How has the move affected your life and work?
Honestly, how hasn’t it affected me? At the time I was 25 and in love, and didn’t think too much about the long-term implications. Then again, no one can predict the future anyways. In the past decade we have lived in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, back in Germany, in the desert of Southwest Texas and now in Oklahoma — native land, deeply steeped in stories of blood and injustice.
I took something with me from each place and I left a little bit of myself in each place.
All the moving around has deepened my understanding of people’s stories, weaving the story of place into my own story and building rituals and ceremonies that help others to slow down and learn to care for themselves, their children, their sisters, their lovers, the earth.
Tell us more about your publication MILK…
MILK is where I write about motherhood and all the layers of being a woman, and a mother. I wanted to create a very honest letter that inspires, not from a place of ‘being the ultimate expert’, but from a place of shared experience, of being in the bread and bones of it, too.
Hopefully, MILK will inspire a slowing down; to soften towards yourself and to the world. In MILK I share my love of nature, seasonal living, hygge, comforting interiors, books and all the rituals and ceremonies that make us live wholeheartedly.
I imagine my readers sitting with a steaming cup of coffee, or cacao, or tea and my writing making them feel understood and comforted, but also inspiring them to ask some deeper, more spiritual questions.
If you close your eyes and open your heart - what do you see?
Describe your home and garden.
We currently live in an old brick home from 1929. I fell in love with it because of the original, creaky hardwood floor that we restored, as well as the flowing layout. All three bedrooms have two doors, making it seem easeful to pass through the house. As you walk in you are right in the living room and its six beautiful large windows. Finally, we are putting in an old wood-burning stove into the 1920s fireplace that I covered with a simple concrete, for a rougher appeal.
Our garden is wild. Considering we live in the city center it is quite big and allows us to house a flock of chickens, which makes us live out a bit of that urban homesteader dream.
We tried to grow vegetables several times, but I have a really hard time with the Oklahoma soil and climate. It is burning hot here from May through October and so we put in an above ground pool. It is plain ugly, but it has saved my sanity so many times.
I love swimming in the mornings with the birds chirping above me. It holds me over until I live in a place again, where I can easily jump into a river or lake everyday. We keep it up year round and cold plunge in it, which keeps me and my husband humbled, laughing and connected on many weekday mornings.
How do you feel in your home?
Safe. Grounded. Connected.
It is the place that shelters me from everything that is going on in the world. Lately, I have spent a lot of time pondering what makes our homes feel personal and ‘nest-like’, or ‘feathered’…
We have been influenced about interiors and design trends so intensely on social media and it almost takes courage to trust our own instincts of what feels good on a deeply personal level.
What are your favourite rituals?
*Lighting candles. Candlelight everywhere.
*Making coffee.
*Drinking said coffee in the morning sun watching the kids and the chickens.
*A hot evening bath with my husband reading books, telling each other about the stories we read.
How do you bring meaning to your home?
By weaving in elements of nature wherever I can…
Wool, wood, stone, ceramic. Feather, bone, stick and stone. Herbs, flower, branch and root.
By weaving in personal stories…
Photographs, meaningful books, and things that remind us of the places and people we love.
In our dining room, for example, we hung these massive elk antlers. My late father was an avid, but soulful huntsman and he gave me these as a gift. They remind me of him, of home and create a very specific Bavarian ‘Alpine’ look in our home.
Where do you feel most creative at home?
quoted Julia Kerninon in ‘Cacophony of Bone’ — “To possess a wooden table that I could work at in the peaceful morning light, to have enough money to feed my children, enough time to love whomever I would love.”
Ah, it touched me so very deeply. Many days I yearn for my own office, something with a door and a lock. However, the simple wooden table my husband built for me in the living room, next to a big window, with my old thrifted chair, my computer and a candle is definitely a place that I feel very creative, just maybe not often enough with three children.
Where do you feel most nourished?
While I feel nourished and loved in our bedroom, with the big family bed and a rosy salt lamp, I will have to say — the kitchen.
Preparing nourishing meals brings me a great deal of joy and so it quite literally and figuratively nourishes me. The kitchen in this house is very small and dark. It came with a unassuming old-fashioned brown tile that was used for floor, backsplash and countertop. Finally, we are putting in a butcher block countertop and removing some built ins for some less monstrous shelving. I am thinking of painting the old cabinets ‘Pavilion Gray’ by Farrow & Ball.
Where do you spend most time in your home as a family?
The dining room. It is where we eat, read, learn, host, play games and just sit and talk. Recently my husband told me about a new statistic he read that said the average American family only eats three meals a week together. Unfathomable. I wouldn’t want to miss the meals and stories we share around the table.
Community starts at the table, sharing bread. Mothers in particularly need community. I always have a comfy chair and a cup of coffee for any mother that wants to swing by and share her stories around my table.
Back in Southwest Texas we had an artist from Austin make table legs for us and then we covered them with a table top of simple wooden planks. It meant to serve as an interim until we find the ‘perfect’ tabletop. Six years later I love that it looks well worn and lived-in and I never worry about the kids ‘destroying’ it with forks and knives and pencils.
How have you considered the needs of your family within the design of your home?
I find that with young kids our needs change all the time and the best things for me has been, to allow myself to honor these changes, by moving things around and looking at interiors in a more fluid way.
Home decorating is a journey, not a destination.
Do you have any family rituals and rhythms?
Oh yes, many! One of my favorite ones right now is definitely to switch to nothing but candlelight as soon as it gets dark outside. It has made such a difference for our nervous systems. Many tasks are hard to do with candlelight, so I just leave them and enjoy myself. Sounds simple, but is a bit of a revolution for me.
How do you pay attention to the seasons within your home?
Definitely by looking outside through our many windows. We have most of them pretty open. Lots of Americans have their blinds closed all day. Not us. We don’t even have blinds in most of the rooms. Seeing leaves change, trees budding and birds visiting on of our many bird feeders brings all of us great joy. We also have quite the active squirrel population and me and the kids love watching the squirrels play.
In addition, we bring in seasonal things and place them on our family altar. I believe altar keeping is so vital for us, we are spiritual animals after all.
Is your home complete, or do you have any further aspirations or plans?
As I said before, we are currently updating the kitchen a bit. Home renovations are so expensive, consuming both time and money. Some updates to an old home are unavoidable, some are necessary to really improve our quality of living, but I start to think that sometimes it is better to learn to be happy with the now and to sit with the imperfections in gratitude, versus constantly trying to update and improve. Wait, am I still talking about our homes, or have I crossed over to us women…?
Anyway, I believe there is something to be said about living in our homes, versus always striving to improve our spaces.
You can explore more of Eva’s work via her publication MILK, her Milk & Coffee podcast, on Instagram and via her website.
I loved Eva’s simple but revelatory wisdom about living in our homes as they are, rather than thinking about what we need to change and improve (and how this perhaps also relates to ourselves).
I would love to know if you are able to sit with the imperfections within your home or if you often dream of the changes you would like to make…?
Thank you for reading and I really look forward to your thoughts, hope we can chat more in the comments.
Lyndsay xx
 | A guest post by
|
"and a soft, tactile warmth to every word." What an absolutely gentle thing to say about my word. It really touched me. Thank you for putting this interview together in such a beautiful manner.
hot damn i loved this!