Daniel asked Camila 5 questions across Chicago and Los Angeles.
Daniel and Camila had not met. This was how Camila first introduced themselves:
The first question came from this introduction. Later questions followed the answers.
38. Although ask me at seven in the morning and I'll say 50. I sew at home, so my day starts when the kids leave for school and I'm usually still in the same chair when they come back.
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Grew up here, east side. I've never lived more than an hour from the hospital I was born in, which sounds a bit sad when I type it out. My mother came from the countryside and spent thirty years saying she would go back. She never went. I used to think that was a failure. Now I think you just get attached to a bus route.
Hems. So many hems. School trousers that are too long, a zip on a backpack, one man who brings me the same jacket twice a year because he refuses to buy a new one. Maybe four times a year something beautiful turns up, a dress for a party. The rest is repairs. People always hand me repairs slightly embarrassed, like they're admitting something, and I have never understood that. A torn thing that gets mended is a thing somebody wanted to keep.
Nobody to ask. In the shop, if a fabric started behaving strangely you held it up and three women told you what to do, all at the same time, all differently. At home I hold it up and it's me and the radio. For the first few months I left voice notes for myself, which is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. "Camila, do not cut that today." I still do it. It works.
Almost all of it. That jacket — I've replaced the lining twice and he thinks I freshened it up. There's a way you stitch the corner of a pocket from the inside so it stops tearing in the same place. Nobody will ever see it. If I do it badly the pocket comes back in a year, and even then he won't know it was me. That's most of the job, honestly. Doing something well that nobody is ever going to look at. My kids have no idea what I do all day. They just know the machine is loud.
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我也上过两年夜班。“不是安静，是慢”这句说得很准。
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