Seeing your potential through the eyes of others – with Itto and Mekiya Outini

In today's episode, Itto and Mekiya Outini open up about the power of storytelling, overcoming personal challenges, and the unique paths that have led them to become advocates for writers worldwide.

We begin with Itto and Mekiya telling the unlikely story of how they met, and how their union not only created great happiness for the two of them, but also their business Datekeepers, a platform where emerging writers find their voice and the courage to share their stories. 

Itto shares how her early life living on the streets of Morocco due to a heart-breaking family betrayal eventually led her rise as a globally-recognized scholar. Mekiya shares how his life story is one of defying societal norms, and embracing a life that is true to himself. Their shared experiences, filled with resilience and self-love, serve as a beacon for anyone navigating the complexities of finding their own voice.

At the heart of our conversation lies a universal reminder: the impact of a supportive community and influential mentors in our own life's stories. We explore the balance between receiving guidance and forging an independent path, and the transformative effect of educators who embolden, rather than diminish our personal power. 

MEET ITTO AND MEKIYA
Itto and Mekiya Outini are the founding editors of The DateKeepers, an international media platform that publishes short-form creative and journalistic nonfiction, spotlights individuals who’ve overcome extreme adversity to make meaningful contributions to their fields, and creates opportunities for emerging writers. 

Itto Outini is a Fulbright Scholar, Steinbeck Fellow, and MacDowell Fellow. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Fulbright Chronicle, ABILITY Magazine, and elsewhere, and her life story has been on BBC. She’s spoken for Cal Tech University, The United Nations, Verizon Wireless, and The International Trade Centre and holds an MA in journalism and strategic media from the University of Arkansas.

Mekiya Outini is a writer, freelance editor, and MacDowell Fellow with an MFA in fiction from the University of Arkansas. His short story “Baptism by Earth” won of the 55th New Millennium Award in Fiction, and his work has appeared in Chautauqua, The Coachella Review, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. The first two chapters of his novel, Ashes, Ashes, have been featured in the West Trade Review.

The DateKeepers Website
The DateKeepers LinkedIn

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hi and welcome to Untethered with Jenless, the podcast that's here to help you break free, be you and unleash your inner brilliance. I'm your host, jen, and in this episode we're going to talk about how to see your own potential in other stories. Let's dive in. Hey there, unicorn, it's Jen. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we have a double treat. We have Ido and Makaya Uttini who are coming on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:45

They are the founding editors of Datekeepers, which is an international media platform. They publish short form, creative and journalistic nonfiction. They, in particular, spotlight individuals who've overcome extreme adversity to make meaningful contributions to their fields. They're obsessed with creating opportunities for emerging writers, and this has been their story. Ido is a Fulbright scholar, steinbeck fellow, mcdowell fellow. She has appeared all over the Chicago Tribune magazines all over the world. She's worked with United Nations and her story that she shares with us is phenomenal what she has been through in her life to get to this point. She grew up in Morocco. She was homeless for six years. Someone in her own family blinded her. She went through such difficulty to get to the place that she is today and still here she stands, with all of these aqualods and her humor. As you're going to get to experience. It's a beautiful thing and a beautiful story, and hearing her talk about it with the light that she speaks about her story that she has been through is really, really inspiring.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Her husband, micaiah, is also here today. He is a writer and a freelance editor. He's also a McDowell fellow within MFA and Fiction from. They both met at the University of Arkansas. He, too, has won his fair share of awards and been in lots of publications. So the two of them incredibly achieved, incredibly smart, and they have made huge moves in the field of writing, and that's what they do with their business today.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Now, it's so fascinating. As you're going to hear in this conversation, we talk about the juxtaposition of her upbringing and his upbringing, and yet they both have stories. They both have been through things that have made them the people who they are today, and they're able to look at those things with such deep wisdom, the wisdom that writing and communicating our story really brings. So I hope that you can gain something so powerful for yourself that is going to support you in using your voice, and whatever that way is. That is the message that I hope you pull out of this episode is that seeing yourself in other stories can inspire you to turn around and use your own very powerful voice, and that is going to help you, no matter what you're doing, whether it's in your work, whether it's in communicating your business value, whether it is helping yourself to get a raise.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Maybe it is deciding to do that podcast. Whatever that thing is, that you will be inspired to use your own voice by seeing yourself just a little bit in their stories. All right, everyone, welcome to the podcast. Ido and Makaya Hi welcome. Thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Rilled to have you on for a bajillion reasons. Your story is so powerful and I cannot wait for my guests to hear what has gotten you to the space of even being on this podcast today so that we can talk about it. But I would love to hear from both of you, because I think it's so fun and we just mentioned it that you, Makaya, you took Ido's last name. That is a pretty untethered thing to do in our current society here in the US. Are you willing to share your reasonings behind doing that and why you made that decision?

Speaker 3: 4:33

Sure, yeah, so it sounds cool. It sounds way cooler than my mother's name was Walters and my mother, ido, is my mother's name as well, because I got my mother's name when my parents got married and had me, not my father's name and my mother came up with the name Makaya and gave that to me. But the problem is Makaya sounds really cool and Walters sounds bland by comparison. So just to finish the work that she started, I went ahead and changed my name and our business is the Daykeepers, which is an English language translation of our last name, which in do you want to tell the story of where it comes from, or where it comes from, you can. So Ido's first language is Damazix, which is a North African language, and it's one of the indigenous languages in the region where she grew up, and it means the keeper of the dates is in the fruit that comes from the date palm tree, and so that we named our business as the English translation of that name.

Speaker 3: 5:32

A lot of people think we're a dating site and we're actually not sorry about that, but Anar Lago also has date palm leaves on it, even though we couldn't get actual dates on it, unfortunately. So it's just some nice leaves and when I went to get my name changed, we're living in Missouri and I really thought it was going to be very weird, but people were really chill about it. I didn't encounter any friction. So when I changed my last name to Poutini, I could not have gone more smoothly actually.

Speaker 2: 5:58

And he became MO, which is also an abbreviation for Missouri.

Speaker 3: 6:02

Yeah, I moved to Missouri and I became Missouri.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Full on Missouri. It got very literal with that move. Well, thank you for sharing that. I think it's always so fascinating these teeny tiny choices that we make in our lives that lead us to certain things and a little choice like that. I mean, it went smoothly for you and I'm so glad that it did, but it can be confusing to some people and a hard decision for other people. I was telling you that my little sister and her husband chose their own last name and that was a really odd thing. I mean, a lot of people questioned it, but then most people were just like, oh cool, you know, so it's like we think that it's going to be really difficult, but a lot of times it's easier than we think, once you do it, if you do it with confidence, it just kind of normalizes it.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2: 6:50

Yeah well, I am originally from North Africa and back in Morocco no one takes others' name. Basically, when people get married, you keep your name, your partner keeps their name, their last name too. The only thing is children they take their father's name. I never really like I didn't. My goal was to educate myself and to overcome the challenges I've overcome, and I wasn't thinking about, you know, getting married or dating or anything. And when we got married, everyone was saying are you going to become an Eto Walters? And I was like that sounds weird, I want to keep. So I kept my name and he took it, and our business took our name. So there's three Uttanis right now.

Speaker 3: 7:39

You're just spreading it around.

Speaker 1: 7:40

Yeah, that's really awesome. I love it. I love it. Well, speaking of Missouri, I'm curious growing up in North Africa, did you expect to someday be living in the state of Missouri?

Speaker 2: 7:52

Well, I didn't actually immigrate to Missouri. First I came to Arkansas, which is where we met Exactly, but I didn't, so I can go back and tell you.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Yeah, what brought you to Missouri?

Speaker 2: 8:08

I grew up in Morocco and I was born to an indigenous father and then Arab woman. So my mom died when I was very young. I didn't go to school because I don't think. On my father's side there was not. There were no schools. We didn't have electricity, running water, nothing. Basically, we were in literally the middle of nowhere. We had tents, mud houses. There was no education, no television, newspaper, podcast, magazine. There was nothing. And when I moved to my mother's side, I saw my cousins going to school and neighbors, but of course it was too late for me.

Speaker 2: 8:49

When I was 17,. That was when I first attended school, when I went to school. I am totally blind. I was blinded by a family member at the age of 17. And that's when everything started. That's when my life changed. That was the starting point for me. I went to school and I went to the blind school. It started from the 7th grade because of my age in 2007.

Speaker 2: 9:18

And I learned Braille and that was my only way to communicate and read and write. And I learned how to read and write in Braille, french and, well, arabic and then French and then English later. And I didn't have access to technology until I came to the US. So I didn't know really much about the world besides what I read in some books that I got. I had an audio CD player, I had a, a few recorders, portable radio. That was like wow, like you know a lot, it was for me, it was too much, like I felt like I had everything because I didn't know what was there to have. So that was ignorance is a bless in that case.

Speaker 2: 10:05

And then 2013,. I was really eager to find opportunities. I was homeless after I left the hospital and it was almost for six years, so I wanted anyone or anything to support me. Well, I traveled a lot. It wasn't only once, but I traveled a lot from different parts of Morocco to the capital, because you know the government offices, different organizations. I knocked many, many, many organizations doors. They all were closed in my face because, you know, blind woman, and I was told million times that even people who are sighted can't do things. How do you, dear, think that you will accomplish things? And, of course, I didn't believe any of that. I was really stubborn and once, one time, a taxi driver told me about the Fulbright office back in Morocco and he dropped me there and I didn't know what Fulbright was.

Speaker 1: 11:12

And what age were you at this time, at this time that you were kind of going around hopping from place to place, what age?

Speaker 2: 11:17

were you. Then I was from 18 through 25, 26.

Speaker 1: 11:22

Okay.

Speaker 2: 11:23

I never had stability back in Morocco because my parents died and my family left me, so I was just on my own. There were a lot of people who supported me on the way you know, like people giving me money on the streets or food, taking me to their houses, but at the end of the day, I was the one responsible for my life and I traveled the whole country and looked for opportunities, got different jobs. I had a lot of bookstores who really supported me because they really admired how hardworking student I was and they let me borrow books or take them on credit, thinking that I'll pay them later, which now, when I understand the concept of money, I'm sure I didn't pay even like 1% of that. So I'm grateful to those people. So I entered the Fulbright office and I was told oh, if you work hard and you apply, you will compete with other people. I was never promised that I will get the Fulbright, but also I didn't understand what Fulbright was. For your listeners, if they don't know what Fulbright is, it's a State Department program that sends Americans to study, do research, teach and different programs abroad, and also other people come from different countries to study or teach or do research to the US. So it's an exchange program Was founded in 1940s by J William Fulbright.

Speaker 2: 13:01

He was a US Senator and he is actually from Arkansas, studied at the University of Arkansas where I studied and got my MA. I was very, very determined to pursue my education and I just continued working towards that, like coming like maybe twice or three times a year every time to visit and ask them like what should I do? What are the next steps? And they were helping me, saying you've got to improve your English. Take TOEFL and GRE. And I applied.

Speaker 2: 13:36

And at the university back in Morocco, I studied English literature for two years and I got my associated degree in English literature. And then I studied English applied linguistics in the capital university called Mohammed V University. I studied American culture but for some reason we learned about Oklahoma, alaska, but not Arkansas, nothing, like I never read anything about Arkansas. Yeah, I thought for a second. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 14:08

But when I got and used that I was coming to Arkansas, I was asking my American friends is that in the US or somewhere else? Of course not understanding that the Fulbright was just an exchange program from the US and also other people coming to the US or other countries. So I came to Arkansas. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know where I was going, and I made friends. In my first day, my Fulbright advisor flew from Washington DC and helped introduce me to the university and helped me settle, and they met my husband in my second day in Arkansas. And I made other friends too bunch of friends. Some of them are no longer there because it's a university town. So I immigrated first from Morocco to Fayetteville, arkansas. In 2021, I moved to Kansas City, missouri.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Okay, both those places are gorgeous and so much fun. I actually have family in Bentonville Rogers area, which is very close to Fayetteville, so I've spent a lot of time there and that's when I was a kid. I dreamed of living there. So pretty. I'm from Kansas originally, now in Oregon, which looks much more like Fayetteville in some ways. But Kansas City cool town, it's a cool city and y'all are celebrating right now because the Chiefs are you football fans.

Speaker 2: 15:39

A little bit, not much.

Speaker 3: 15:42

I just hear people talk about it and I but I don't watch them read it- Back when I lived in Arkansas, the way that I knew that the Razorbacks were playing in the stadium that was maybe like a 20 minute walk from my house was that my roommate's father would text us from Arizona and let us know who won. And that was how many of the games did it go through?

Speaker 1: 16:01

That's your extent, okay, okay, not like my mom who has a Chiefs arrowhead tattooed on her foot. Very different, wow, chiefs committed, this is okay. So your journey it's wild that you met each other the second day that you got here. It's like, okay, here you are, you're meant to be, you're right here in the place and your journey of getting to this point is incredible. I mean, this has been your life and so you speak about it. Like you know, this happened and then this happened and then this happened. But there had to have been so many little moments in between to get you from where you are, where you went, to where you are, and I mean the acolytes that you've gained along the way completely speak for themselves. I'm so curious like what were you like as a child, like a small child? Have you always been this stubborn and this determined to get yourself to Missouri?

Speaker 2: 17:03

I didn't know that Missouri existed. I guess if I did, maybe I would have started walking to whatever place I knew existed. But I was born creative and I love getting advice from people elderly people. But I also love to explore things and learn, and learn by exploring, making mistakes or whatever. I never wanted to be an obedient kid. I have a lot of funny stories. I was really. My animals were my best friends. I told them stories. I tried to take care of little animals the way my family was taking care of the big ones. I wanted them to be my friends. I wanted to learn and know everything, even though my world was very small because, again, I was in the middle of nowhere. But I have learned everything through trial and error. I love connecting with everything people, animals, nature, tractors. The story of tractor when I was a kid my uncle had a tractor and it was the first time I saw the thing. I'm sorry anything with a combustion engine.

Speaker 2: 18:31

Yeah Well, but I didn't even understand how it worked. I was in the river and I grabbed a scorpion and I came running and I was like this is my tractor. I was so excited and the women were like throw it away. I was really like I throw it away because I just wanted them to stop, but I kind of was really pissed at them. Why did they wanted me to throw away my tractor? I grabbed one chicken and I wanted to put an egg back inside of it.

Speaker 1: 19:04

A very curious kid.

Speaker 2: 19:07

Yeah, like it pooped on me but it didn't let me do it. But now I know I can't do it, but back then I was really convinced. That's how you found out. Yeah, Well, yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:20

It sounds like this is a thematic in your life. This you didn't want to be an obedient kid. Earlier. You had said. People said you can't do things, and when they said you can't do it, you decided that you would do it, which seems to be a common theme between both of you. Is this something that you have related on this? This like well, if you tell me I can't, then watch me kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 19:40

Yes, we both love to do things that are challenging, because I think, personally, life without challenges is kind of boring, like we don't. If I have, if I've had life where you know I've had everything given to me, I wouldn't have tasted the powerful taste of success and that feeling of, yes, everything I've earned, I truly earned it.

Speaker 1: 20:11

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:13

For me it was a little. I was kind of an obedient kid and my parents were the ones who had rebelled against mainstream society and I. So I kind of I grew up with this bizarre mix of. I didn't really identify with the mainstream culture at all, but it wasn't exactly my rebellion. Some parts of it were like I had my own relationships with different, like literature and music and whatnot that, and so I didn't feel I had difficulty conforming to the mainstream expectations there as well, and I had my own reasons for that. But for me I have kind of had to like balance a skepticism of the rules with the impulse to follow them as long as they are reasonable and they.

Speaker 3: 21:05

it's a difficult balance to strike sometimes.

Speaker 1: 21:07

Makaya, I understand you through and through. I feel like that's me too. It's both sides, I think, coming from. One thing that I've realized for myself is that as I've grown up, my dad really did kind of shirk the mainstream a lot but then simultaneously lived the expected life, and so I grew up seeing both sides of that and I feel it in myself and it's like once we realize, oh, oh, that's what's happening inside of me, we can start to make good with it and move ourselves forward in certain ways. So I feel myself in what you're saying and probably some other people who are listening are like, oh yes, me too. It's a beautiful thing being able to see both of those things. So I'm curious.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Ido, going back to those years, you know your upbringing. I have heard and seen and read stories about you and you know it was. It was hot. It was a hard life in your early years, growing up in a family who sometimes you were feeling like. You know that, that lack of love, and some of us can feel that as we're growing up, even as children, you know, and yours is like this extreme version of that. You know it was your own family member who the blindness, you know, came upon you from that. Yeah, there's so many things that have happened to you where you could have said forget this. This is just like. This is the cards that I've been dealt, this is the hand that I've been dealt, and you haven't given in to that. And I'm curious just thinking about this, because it's so hard for all of us, like when we we have all of these experiences in life, and sometimes it's just so hard to move forward, like what has kept you? What has kept you moving forward?

Speaker 2: 22:58

That's really. Thank you. That's a really, really, really good. Those are good questions.

Speaker 2: 23:03

Yes, I wasn't loved, but it's really complicated to you know. For example, like as I said earlier, I am a product of two cultures. My mom's family saw me as my father's. My father's family saw me as my mother's. So they, my mom's family, would say, like you know, dirty Berber, go away. My father's family, dirty Arab, go away.

Speaker 2: 23:29

So losing my mother, I think, played a huge role on how I was treated, and I don't think, for anyone listening who has lost a mother, they have had it easy Of course mine, because I also, you know, I'm a female and then later I lost my sight and it just got, I guess, worse and worse. There was time when I was said but you know, I think if we are hurting that's what I've learned in life we are in pain and then we we hurt other people. I think there are a lot of things that have helped me, and one of the things is education. I've read everything I could find in whatever format I could read it, and when I couldn't, I asked people to read out loud to me when I didn't have access to books. If I didn't learn how to self love myself. I don't think I will be where I am now If I kept blaming others, blaming the circumstances and blaming life. I wouldn't be where I am now. So I think sometimes we have to turn off the past not like turn off 100%, but, I guess, mute it and move forward, because, at the end of the day, we are responsible for our lives and we are responsible for how to live the life we want.

Speaker 2: 24:58

And I chose that after many years of crying. For example, when my family left me, I was really hurt. I wanted them back, despite of the fact that they tortured me. That's all what I knew. But then I found myself having to find solutions, to find a way to move forward, to find a way to educate myself, and now I don't want to go back to my family, even talking to them over social media or whatever. But I don't hate them. I don't hold grudges. They're on their own. I am on my own. And whoever did something, whether they were hurting or they did it intentionally, it was the past. And now I have been able to accomplish things and I hope that I have proved them wrong, for not only my family, but everyone who thought and told me that I will never do what I was telling them what I was going to do.

Speaker 3: 26:03

Oh yeah, you have and you do every day.

Speaker 2: 26:09

But yeah, I also reading is one thing that I have in common with my husband. We both loved reading and that's I think that's the reason we've survived a lot of struggles. When you feel like you are connected with characters in whatever material, with a fiction or nonfiction, you're reading.

Speaker 3: 26:30

It lets you see yourself in the inside and the outside at the same time, which is a useful thing.

Speaker 1: 26:35

Yeah, so powerful. It makes me think of back in middle school, and a lot of kids fall into books in middle school, start to fall into love with stories at that age, and even for myself, you're reminding me of how much books played such an integral role in helping me through that period. And so there's all these different periods of our lives, but that one comes to mind in particular with what you're sharing, that seeing life and seeing ourselves and seeing others through the characters is really, really powerful. I'm curious. You mentioned a self-love journey. What has been and this could be for either or both of you what has been the biggest thing for you that has supported you on your own self-love journey? This is something that I think a lot of us are on this journey at whatever point we're at with it. You've come so far to come to the point of feeling forgiveness for those who have harmed us. That can take so much work. So I'm curious what has really supported you?

Speaker 2: 27:43

I guess just myself you.

Speaker 3: 27:46

If I'm being honest, you, ito because I had not really felt the experience of being loved by someone before, and so I hadn't had a reference, the point of reference with which to know what love even was or what it would be like to give that to myself. Thank you everyone for watching until next time. I love my parents. They cared for me and I think they loved me as best they knew how, but they both had a lot of trauma too, and that that blocked them in ways that I couldn't articulate or couldn't perceive, but I well, I couldn't consciously perceive them, but I felt them.

Speaker 3: 28:26

And that trauma that I guess secondhand trauma stayed with me for a very long time. And and Our, ours, is not a society that loves easily, I don't think it's not we he took and I joke about how Americans will say I love you at a moment's notice, but to actually do it, to actually carry through on that, act it. It's hard to find that connection, and Now that I actually have experienced that with you till, I'm learning how to experience it with myself as well that's beautiful and what a powerful noticing that we live in a society that does not love easily.

Speaker 1: 29:11

I Think that's one of the biggest things keeping so many of us tethered to a life that we don't love is our inability to love.

Speaker 2: 29:16

So that's really powerful well, I think, also individualism, like, again, look, I was homeless in Morocco and and yes, education is free, but I didn't have Organization that was there to support me, like the way things are here in the US, you know, like Government services, and we don't have any of that in Morocco, but at least we don't when I was there. I don't know now, but people were supporting me on the street like, for example, a woman would find me at the bus station, frozen, and like they will take off their their coat and their scars and give it to me. And like hug me and say Where's your mom, and when I would say my mom died, like someone would hug me and take me over to their place and, you know, host me. And there was also a trust. Like, as I said earlier, there was no, I didn't have a bank account or whatever I had.

Speaker 2: 30:15

I went to the bookstore and said I am student and I didn't look like one because I was homeless and I didn't Dress period, let alone like I was wearing really like you know, torn clothes and sometimes no shoes, but still, the bookstore people believed in me and let me Take books on credit, even though, again, as I said, I don't think I paid them. Whenever I had money, I would take it and say, like this is what I have. And there was, there was a trust and there was like a society that Just poor people like myself at the time Felt for me and they understood that I needed Support, like the taxi driver who took me to the forbid, or the one the taxi driver who helped me go to the blind school. Just normal, daily people who are very Supportive and they don't know much about the US. I've been here for a little bit little bit over six years, so I'm still learning, but I think individualism has a little bit something to do with it.

Speaker 1: 31:18

Yeah, I think that makes sense. It does make me think, though, because we just had an ice storm here in Oregon and we have a community I don't know if you're on next door, but it's a community app where you know your neighbors can say things that are going on and people in the town, and generally I stay off of it, but we were having power outages and so I was getting all. I stay off of it because it's a lot of drama, negativity sometimes, but somebody had said that she had found someone who had been. It was an elderly man who had ended up outside and he couldn't find his way back home, and she said people were just driving by and driving by and driving by. And what is this world that we are living in? That this man was practically frozen out there on the ice and everyone was just Driving by, and it sounds like what you're saying in Morocco, like somebody would see that man and and go and support him, and go and help him.

Speaker 2: 32:12

Yes, that's what again, when, when I live like that. That's that's how things were. I don't know now if modernism corrupted the society who knows but I have a friend back in Morocco who is blind and she works at a hospital and and one thing she told me a few weeks ago she wanted to go to see her mother and she asked someone if they can work on her behalf and they said that's weird. That's crazy because I never worked in Morocco in a like, you know, a professional job. I worked, you know, cleaning restaurants and like internships and stuff like that. And she's and I said are you gonna pay him? And she said no, he's gonna do it as a favor. And I was like, wow, that's, that's interesting.

Speaker 2: 33:00

But I think, because of like, people are afraid in the Western world I don't think it's just America of what happens if you try to help someone. For example, what happens if you give someone food and they end up being sick. You're gonna go to jail. I Don't think it's just as simple. I think it's it's a really Complicated and there's a blind person. I think also, some People don't want to ask for help because it comes across as weaknesses. Personally, I don't. I go and knock at my neighbors doors and Say hello and ask for help, whatever I need. I don't think, no matter what. I don't think we we can be 100% Independent. We all rely on each other from you know, getting, think like getting things to the store or whatever. Sometimes we don't even know or see or even think about people who help us. So I think the attitude, the culture and also the fear of the outcome, yeah, you're so right that it's really complicated and complex.

Speaker 1: 34:12

I did have to face what I was grappling with. When I read that post, I was thinking, well, what I have been one of the people who stopped or what I have been afraid and Genuinely I probably would have been afraid To stop because of that lack of trust. So it's fascinating to think about. We could go down that rabbit hole all day. I am curious, though, because what you say about we all rely on each other. Who has been somebody for each of you, who has deeply impacted your journey to where you are today, who you are today as Business owners, as accomplished you know, human beings? Who has supported you?

Speaker 3: 34:49

Well, for me there actually haven't been that many, but the first person who comes to mind was my first creative writing teacher, and this was in a community college. I was 16 and I had not gone to a public school ever in my life before going to the community college, because my parents home schooled me and I Was excited to go to the community college, but I also had no idea how I was going to fare academically turned out that the academic part was really easy and I've never really posed a challenge for me.

Speaker 3: 35:16

But I didn't know that at the time. I went in things like being intimidated, thinking it was going to be difficult. And Then, well, actually the first creative writing class I the first composition class that I took, I left after one day because the professor Little bit disturbed me with his presentation. So I ended up in this other class with I'll describe her the way she described herself. She marched into class one day and all of her students had introduced themselves as, like in one, one man had introduced himself. He said hi, my name is John, I'm a good Christian man.

Speaker 1: 35:53

So you, she got like got into his definition of himself.

Speaker 3: 35:58

He volunteered that and our teacher her name was yesha what till, and she was Doing everything she could to figure out how to help us actually learn and also pass the class, despite the fact that the academic system in the community college was not set up to make either of those things particularly feasible. And she, she marches into class. One day she said I have a plan for you all, and before I tell you, john, I want you to thank the baby Jesus for giving you that crazy Muslim woman as a teacher. So she was from Turkey, she wasn't actually like a practicing Muslim, but she was all about playing with her identity and I think she had done all the drugs that that there are to do when she was a teenager. She, she was a noblest. She ended up teaching in this community college because life is weird and she was incredibly passionate about I think she's one of the only teachers that ever had. Who is who. I really admire this quality To be able to simultaneously Let you know that the work you've done.

Speaker 3: 36:55

It sucks. And why did? Why did you slack off and give me this half-ass piece of shit? And also, I still like you and and you're still a good student come back class and do it better, and I, most of the teachers I've known, have been too scared to do that. They either they praise you, no matter what you do. They they don't Challenge you because they're afraid.

Speaker 3: 37:15

I think that's also a product of a lot of factors that are external to them as individuals, and she just was not afraid of that. She was not afraid of her students and she was not afraid to tell us when we had done something that didn't measure up. And that was how I first started to get better as a writer. I had always loved to write. I've been Writing and telling stories to myself since that, like pretty much since I could talk, and she was the first person who really pushed me and Kind of also the last. But after she gave me that boost, I learned how to push myself. So she even though I lost had with her she was a really major influence on my life.

Speaker 1: 37:50

What a cool teacher that she was willing to do that. I was just telling a friend the other day, my favorite teacher of all time. It came up because my friend had gone back to our hometown to go to a funeral and that she's like you'll never get a guess who was there. Mrs Kreitzer, it's like no way. She was my favorite teacher because she's the only teacher who ever pulled the card on me. You know, the card for talking in class. She's the only because I was a good kid. But one day I was whispering to my friend and she pulled a. No other teacher ever did it to me, even if I was being a little bit bad. But she was like no, get your crap together, you're not doing what you're supposed to do and I respected it.

Speaker 3: 38:28

It's actually a really I mean. The problem is that some, some teachers don't know how to do that without also demeaning you as a person.

Speaker 3: 38:35

And I and I think that there's been that like this overreaction to that fact, because that's not healthy either, but as an overreaction that I think a lot of teachers now are terrified to criticize their students work because they they either don't know how to distinguish their criticism of the work from their criticism of the student, or they know how, but they're afraid that no one else the administration, will recognize that distinction and they'll be punished for something that they didn't do. So it it kind of. I think that's an unhelpful dynamic that's emerged in our education system and I'm really, I feel grateful to have kind of skirted my way around that by chance.

Speaker 1: 39:12

Yeah, well, by having a very special person in your life who was an integrity for herself and Was was willing to support you in seeing what that's like too. So that's really powerful. Thank you for that share.

Speaker 3: 39:24

He did not give two shit. She would also Would have students over to her house and she would bring out a pillow in the shape of a. Well, there was a. Okay, the pillow was kind of in the shape of a butt and there was a Slit in it that was kind of the shape of a female genitalia, and you had to reach into the pillow and pull out your favorite Bible books, and that was about you, that, anyway. So that was, that was she was. She did not untethered teaching Hilarious.

Speaker 1: 39:57

You know, is there somebody in your life who has really made an impact along your journey?

Speaker 2: 40:02

Oh, there have been many, many people, I think a lot of my teachers and my professors. Like, as I said earlier, I didn't have Other things like technology to support me, and my teachers would say, okay, you're blind, help me, help you, let's learn together. And Things were tough, but they, they were always there, like my teachers and my professors. A little bit in the blind school, unfortunately, my teachers who are blind, they were not as supportive, but my Sighted teachers, all of them were, and they remember my science teacher who Every time when they learned things, she would buy me a gift. And there were also women who worked in the blind school. They would buy me gifts and they wouldn't know what gifts to buy. Sometimes they would buy me chewing gum or a candy, whatever, like anything to reward me for working hard. And there was a story of a blind female teacher who Was I don't know if it I I can't take, you know, I don't. I'm not sure because I wasn't there, but the story went like this that her husband, who was a heavy drug user, murdered her and my Arabic teacher would tell me don't do this, don't follow this footstep, do not Go with someone Pretending that you know, you are safe, but also you are being tortured. Look what happened to this teacher. She died a horrible death and I was taught by my female teachers and professors, and also by some of my male professors, seeing me and saying we love what you're doing and we support you and we will do whatever we can to make it happen.

Speaker 2: 41:56

And also my friends. I've had a lot of friends along the way and we supported each other. Where, like, for example, my female friends wouldn't, wouldn't tell their parents that they are with me, we could, so that we can go out and Also read and write and do our homework together. They would tell them that they were going to the class and I would go with them and Invite them over to my place. Or we go to McDonald's back in Morocco. It was a fancy place but we were really poor and we would go on by like five darehams of french fries, which is nothing. Basically, I used that like I would go a five step for the French yeah, which is crazy From a very expensive restaurant in Morocco. Mcdonald here is cheap in the US, but in Morocco it's considered to be, you know, fancy. So, like everyone in my life who has supported me it's hard to name one specific person, but there have been a lot of people who have enhanced my self-confidence and self-love and Just encouraging me to do what I always wanted to do.

Speaker 1: 43:13

Yeah, what really comes through and what you've shared there about the people in your life is that over and over again, you had people saying things to you that were reinforcing that you didn't need to accept any less than you deserve, and you deserve it all, and You've created so much of that for yourself throughout your life, mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 43:34

Yeah, I like it's really weird. There have been two types of people in my life those who have told me many times that I will never do things. There have been people who even told me what I've accomplished is nothing, but of course I don't believe that. But there there have been people who have Encouraged and motivated me and supported me with whatever they have your story is such a powerful like Example of these smaller ways that each of us receives these messages.

Speaker 1: 44:08

Think, these same messages. Each of us can receive them on the micro level. That Message that you said earlier of you can't do things like. There's things you can't do, and whether that's because you're a Woman, or because you're from Missouri, or because you're from whatever it is, or because you're blind, whatever the thing is, we all get this message at some point in our lives for something you can't do this, and we all also have people who believe in us too. It's like we have examples of both.

Speaker 2: 44:39

I think it's a choice. We have to go with the people who believe in us. Every year I have goals, and one of those goals that repeats itself let go to toxic relationships. I don't care about anyone who doesn't value me and see me as a person who is capable of everything I wanted to do. And if I can't do it, I'll find a way to do it. And if I can't do all of it, I can collaborate with other people and accomplish whatever I wanted. And if there's someone who thinks of me as less, I have to let go to that relationship. And that's what I've been living since I was very way younger.

Speaker 3: 45:25

And we all depend on collaboration if we want to get anywhere. In our case, for instance, Ito doesn't have eyes, so I have to do some of the things that involve eyes, but I don't have all the skills that I would need to run a business.

Speaker 3: 45:37

Ito is doing things that my brain just does not do to make our business work, and the two of us rely on other people to get things done as well. Like no enterprise is successful without a lot of people coming together and contributing their skills and their resources and their knowledge. Faces and anyone who wants to do everything on their own at some point. Sooner or later, they're gonna run up against their limits and that's gonna prevent them from moving forward, unless they are willing to bring other people on board.

Speaker 1: 46:08

Yeah, so true. Thank you for sharing about that that letting go of toxic relationships and I think we can all all of us who are listening to you both sharing. We can feel the lightness and the aliveness in your relationship and how the two of you bring out the best in one another. I can hear it in the way that you laugh and interact with one another. It's really beautiful to witness. So, makaya, you mentioned, really when we got on this call, you started to mention that you getting out and speaking and using your voice has been. That's been a growth process for you, and it is for anybody who's at the very beginning of starting to share their story, right? Is there anything that you can share with people who might be listening, whether they're a writer I mean, this is what you work with you support writers, you support journalists, whether they're wanting to use their voice in the way that you're using your voice on this podcast and sharing these beautiful things that you're sharing. What would you tell somebody who is like I kind of want to, but I'm scared?

Speaker 3: 47:08

My experience has been that I had to find out what my story was, and I spent years trying to. I mean, I spent years training myself to write. I got to the point where I, like I now I'm I'm very proud of my technical skills as a writer and I can do things with language that I'm proud of. I can switch registers from, like, technical language to poetry and all of those things. And yet for years I felt like there was something missing at the heart of everything that I was trying to write and I could not figure out on a technical level what it was. Because it wasn't a technical question. It was that I didn't know what my story was and I was attracted to people who knew what their stories were. I was like I would experiment with telling. I mean, because I'm a fiction writer, I do write other people's stories.

Speaker 3: 47:54

I mean they're often imaginary characters, but they're based on real people or they live in real contexts or one thing or another, and the more I could round what I was writing in an experience that I could articulate and comprehend, the more like the stronger I that piece of writing became and the more satisfied I was with it. But there still was this whole because whenever I at the center of my writing, because whenever I tried to write something about myself, it always came out feeling hollow and insincere and I didn't know why. That was because I wasn't consciously holding anything back. So it's only in the last year or so that I've started to reevaluate the story, that I wouldn't say that I was telling it to myself, although technically I was but I had internalized the story about my life that I don't think was accurate.

Speaker 3: 48:46

And I'd internalized the story about my life in which I had not overcome any challenges, in which I had had all of the support that I could possibly want or need and in which I had every form of privilege you could possibly imagine, and still I ended up being unhappy and not knowing how to move forward in life and as a consequence of those I mean, the logical conclusion of that is that it was my fault, that I was the one who was lacking and I was the one who, despite having every opportunity put in front of me, I still had failed to make the best of those opportunities. And it's only in the past year or so that I've started to realize wait a second I haven't had as ideal like the life as I had come to believe that I'd had and that actually that revelation was much more freeing and exciting than it was like. It wasn't traumatic. What was traumatic was believing that I had lived an ideal like life, and then that belief conflicting every day with reality, and there's a lot of reason people don't tell their stories.

Speaker 3: 49:45

Some people know what their stories are, down to the last detail, but they don't know how to tell them, or they're afraid of retribution, or they're afraid of getting gaslight, or I mean there's a million reasons not to. But at least you have to start telling it to yourself. Because I did not trust my own ability to write, even though I had developed technical skills that I trusted, because there was this one inconsistency, there was this one thing that I could not write in a way that felt honest and that led me to distrust everything else that I'd written. So if you're a storyteller and you're trying to tell stories, start with your own. At least yourself, start with your own.

Speaker 1: 50:23

That's one of the most honest things I have heard in a long time, when you said what was most traumatic was that I believed I had lived an ideal like life, and I was telling myself that lie every day. I hope that sits with people, because that, oh, there's so much there, there's so much there. Okay, that's a huge nugget for anybody to sit on. Sit on that little egg for a while and see how that feels. Don't try to put it back into your butt, though.

Speaker 2: 50:52

I'm gonna take your ticket.

Speaker 1: 50:53

I'm gonna take your ticket. We all know how that ends a big shit storm. Oh my gosh. Okay, you too. There is one question that I love to ask out every guest on this podcast, so I will pose it to each of you when do each of you see the magic in the world?

Speaker 3: 51:11

I had. This actually prepared us an answer to a different question, but I think it addresses this question too. Is it okay if I go on a little bit of a detour, because it's actually gonna feed into the answer? Is that do we have time? Is that okay?

Speaker 1: 51:21

It depends on your time. If you have time, I have time.

Speaker 3: 51:24

Okay, so we're working on Ito's memoir and I've got a lot of experiences in the editor. But this is a special project for me to be working on with her, so I've gone into it as deeply as I can and to make sure I can be as supportive as I can in this process. So when she told me that one of her formative influences was T Ed Pelzer, I read all three of his memoirs and then when she told me that one of her formative influences was Dostoevsky, I was like oh yeah, okay, I'm gonna read all of his books too.

Speaker 3: 51:55

Turns out his books are really long Like.

Speaker 3: 51:58

I read the Brother of Karamazov on audio and I think it's 60 hours long, so that proved a little more of a daunting past than I realized but I've read all of his six major novels now and for the five volume biography open by Frank Joseph or Joseph Frank, I can't recall and one thing I learned was he's got one of his most controversial novels is called.

Speaker 3: 52:18

Depending on how you translate it into English it's either called the Possessed or the Devils, and the reason that title is intriguing it's about groups of revolutionary sort of anarcho, sort of like pseudo-socialists but actually like radical militant anarchists, who are popping up in Russia in the late 1800s and their goal is to destabilize society. And the title of the novel is a reference to the parable of the Jesus Castling the demons out of the people and into the pigs and sending the pigs running down to the sea. But it doesn't translate properly into English because in Russian the word means the entity that possesses someone. It doesn't mean the possessed, it doesn't mean the people who are possessed, it means the entity and it doesn't mean the devils, because devils are not really known for possessing people per se. It's maybe more like demons, in which it's another translation, but it just doesn't properly translate and I love knowing the Russian.

Speaker 3: 53:19

I don't actually know the Russian word but, I love knowing what it means in Russian, because that's how I have learned to see people not as intrinsically good or bad people, but as people who become possessed by.

Speaker 3: 53:29

I don't believe in supernatural entities, but there are lots of intangible things in our worlds that can possess us and some of those things can lead to positive outcomes and some of them can lead to our own destruction and to us damaging the people around us, the people whom we most love.

Speaker 3: 53:46

And I have seen people whom I love become possessed by forces that I don't really identify with them as individuals and that's been challenging for me, but I think if I believe that that was an expression of their inner being, it would be much harder and the part of the way that I can process all of the crisis, the trauma, the drama, the death threats, the political instability, the doom and gloom everything that sort of has saturated media and seems to be saturating every corner of society and every human interaction that we're having in the public sphere is the same thing that Tostoevsky is getting at by titling his novel with that word it's not the human beings who are evil or destructive, it is the things that are possessing us, and he did believe in supernatural entities, but in that case he was using the word to refer to ideas, and ideas are, I think, only one of the many things that can lead us to damage ourselves.

Speaker 3: 54:53

But recognizing those as possessions of a sort and not as expression of people's evil nature. For me, that turns what could be a very bleak landscape into one that is full of potential for change, because something else can always come along and possess someone, if they allow it to happen.

Speaker 1: 55:12

Aren't we lucky to be living in a time and space where you're alive and thinking about these things and writing about these things. We can listen to you share about that all day Fascinating. Thank you for sharing.

Speaker 2: 55:25

Yeah, I agree with him and I don't think I have much to add on that. But yeah, thank you so much for your time and thank you for hosting us.

Speaker 1: 55:36

Yeah, where can people find you and work with you?

Speaker 2: 55:39

Anyone can find us on LinkedIn, whether itoutini Makayautini or the Datekeepers. Also, anyone can reach out to us through thedatekeeperscom and date again is fruits datekeeperscom and or the datekeepersgmailcom.

Speaker 3: 56:00

And when you Google that you've got to put the, otherwise it will show you gatekeepers. It will try to auto correct it.

Speaker 1: 56:07

And then dating. It'll give you the dating sites.

Speaker 3: 56:10

Yeah, yeah, unfortunately we're not, Sorry about that.

Speaker 1: 56:15

I don't know, maybe the universe is calling you to something, to an extension of your business Dating for book lovers, for writers, for holds. Yeah, maybe, why not? Maybe you'll become possessed by that idea.

Speaker 3: 56:29

Oh no, it's circulating, it just needs an orifice to go into.

Speaker 1: 56:34

Oh, my lord, and we're gonna end the conversation there. Thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast and sharing laughs and insights and thanks for us to all think about. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you gained something really powerful for yourself. Remember that we're going to pull a little thread out of this episode in Thursday's thread episode, so there'll be a little bit of a call back to this one. If you catch us on Thursday, it means the world to me that you would listen. If there was something that you enjoyed in this episode, I encourage you to share it with a friend. Take a little screenshot of this episode, put it on social media. If you tag me, I'm Untetheredgen on Instagram. I will always reshare your posts. Thanks again, so much for listening. Catch you next time. Bye.