Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to The Moth. I'm Meg Bowles. We hear this term, I feel seen, often enough. People jokingly say it when they find someone who shares an appreciation of something, a mutual love of argyle socks or fried pickles. But some people wish they could be seen in a deeper way, while others hide in the shadows for their own protection.
Chapter 2: What does it mean to feel seen or unseen in society?
In this episode, we play with the idea of being and not being seen. When not being seen or acknowledged shines a light on a deeper social construct, or when being seen can literally put your life in danger. Our first story comes from the writer Eliza Reed, who lives in Reykjavik, Iceland. She shared her story live on stage at the Union Chapel in London. Here's Eliza Reed, live at the moment.
One spring evening, back in 2016, I'd just finished cooking supper for my four kids, who were two, four, six and eight years old. And the landline phone rings. Now, when the landline phone rings, that was usually either my mother-in-law calling from down the road in Reykjavik, Iceland, where I live, or it was my own mother calling from the farm in Canada, where I grew up.
But on this occasion, it was neither. It was a man who identified himself as a pensioner in a remote northwestern part of the country. And the man told me that he had been watching my husband, Gudni, on television that day. And he was so impressed with what Gudni had to say that he just thought he would call and pass on the message that he thought Gudni should run for president of Iceland.
Now, the news in Iceland that day was dominated by something called the Panama Papers scandal, which you may remember was this scandal that involved various offshore tax havens and global leaders or their families. And in Iceland, our prime minister at the time and his family were implicated in this scandal. and ultimately had to resign.
Now, concurrently to that, there was this ongoing presidential election in the country, because we have both a president and a prime minister in Iceland. And the president who had served for 20 years had announced that he was not seeking reelection for the election that year.
Now, of course, a scandal like the Panama Papers scandal that affected our own politicians was huge news in Iceland, and the television cut to just ongoing commentary on what was going on. And my husband, Goodney, is a sort of bookish, cardigan-wearing history professor. And he was the expert that they called on live television to comment on the crisis.
And that day, he appeared on TV for about six hours with a colleague, talking about what was going on in neutral, nonpartisan, sometimes funny but understandable terms. Anyway, about 15 minutes after that first phone call, Landline phone rings again. Not my mother or my mother-in-law. This time, it's a police officer from the south of the country.
And he, too, has been watching Goodney that day on TV. And he, too, and some colleagues have been so impressed by what they saw that he had looked at my number in the phone book and thought he would just call and suggest that Goodney consider running for president of Iceland. The phone kept ringing.
And I remember thinking, wow, when Goodney gets home from work, he is never going to believe this story of what has happened. But actually, when he came back that night, he was very sanguine. He took out his phone and he showed me just DMs, text messages, instant messages, all saying exactly the same thing to him.
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Chapter 3: How did Eliza Reid become the First Lady of Iceland?
Now, Goodney had never before considered or tried running for elected office. despite the fact that he was an academic expert on the presidents of Iceland and was writing a book about it at the time. But all of a sudden, the stars had aligned in such a constellation that he really needed to make a considered thought about it and make a response.
And really, the decision distilled down to just a few core questions. Would we ruin our children? Could we afford to do it? Would I still be able to continue my work as a writer and editor? And most importantly, did he want to do it, and did he think he could do a good job? But really, it just felt like fate had thrown us some kind of a curveball. All we could do was catch it and run.
So, Goodney declared that he was running for president of Iceland, and the election was held seven weeks later. It happened that quickly. And on August 1st, 2016, I became Iceland's forsetafru. For those of you who don't speak Icelandic, that literally means president's wife.
Now, I was incredibly excited to have this opportunity, one that I had never expected, but it was also incredibly intimidating. I didn't know if I was allowed to say anything I wanted whenever I wanted. What was I gonna wear when we met kings and queens? Could I just comment on the social media posts? Could I order a tequila shot in a bar on a Friday night?
Turns out there is no handbook on how to be the spouse of a head of state. And this is a challenge because I love handbooks. I'm that person who declares the sweater that costs $20 over import limits when crossing the border. I read the manuals for every appliance I buy, cover to cover, from toasters to kettles. So all of a sudden, it was very intimidating.
I didn't have time to worry about whether or not I could do it, but I definitely worried about whether I was doing it right. One thing I knew from the outset, though, that I did have, if not a manual, was this giant invisible platform and mic from which people might listen a little bit more to what I had to say. And I wanted to use that chance to say something important.
What's really important to me is the idea of gender equality and working towards greater gender equality because I know that that improves the lives for people of all genders. But the irony of talking about increasing gender equality when I only had the platform in the first place because of something my husband had achieved felt a little bit overwhelming. I did love
serving as First Lady of Iceland. It was the honour of my life. And as you can imagine, I got to meet all kinds of people, travel all kinds of places, speak about important topics. I went horseback riding. I went whale watching. I ate all kinds of cutrid shark and fish soup. I met Bjƶrk and Loive. But all of a sudden, I was thrust onto the national stage as somebody's wife.
And although I'm incredibly proud to be Goodney's wife, I wouldn't necessarily say that's my defining characteristic as a human being. And I noticed right away these tiny little niggling things that would happen that felt as if my own identity had been subsumed under his greater persona.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Eliza face in her new role?
So suddenly we go into high gear. He said, I'm not going to meet him in true face. I need a disguise. I sent some people out to buy him a shalwar kameez, which is the local costume, the city that we were in. I colored his hair black. I gave him horn-rimmed glasses, a little bit of makeup on his too pale skin. I gave him a big cigar and a file. And I said, the meeting's in that hotel.
You walk in the lobby like you own the place. I mean, with authority. Just go in there. Ahead of him, six CIA officers. I was one. We went ahead of him to set up around the lobby. He said, I'm scared to death of this guy, and I'm not going in there alone. I want eyes on what's happening. So we went ahead. We set up all around the lobby. Somebody was at the bar. Somebody was reading a newspaper.
And I went in, and I saw a rug shop at the back of the lobby with three walls of glass. And I thought, perfect. It's a glass box. I will park myself in there. I can see the lobby. I start looking at rugs. The man starts serving me tea. I'm counting knots. I'm looking at the lobby.
I glanced up to my right, and to my right, across a hallway, through a glass wall, and then through another glass wall, in the newsstand, is the terrorist. The terrorist was a little man. He was about five foot four, wearing his Shalwar kameez, and he was staring straight at me. I'm kneeling on the floor. He's in the newsstand, and he's staring at me. It was like a laser.
He had the most penetrating look, and he just held my gaze. You're not supposed to make eye connection in a scenario like this. Eye connection is recognition. It's personal. You don't ever do that. But I was frozen, as it turned out. I couldn't break it. And he wanted me to know that he knew. He wanted me to know that I was seen, that he saw me.
I haven't mentioned that he was flanked by two really big, what would you call them? They weren't soldiers. They were Pashtuns, I think, and they had Kalashnikovs, long guns. Imagine a Hyatt Hotel lobby. with a little man in a shawl or a kameez and two guards with long guns. No one in that hotel was walking up to this man and saying, excuse me, sir, could you put the guns down?
Everyone was scared of this guy. He's looking at me. I'm frozen. And all I could think was, this is possibly, this is it. They will possibly kill me. It will mean nothing to them. And I found myself hoping that if they killed me, that I would be made a star in the CIA's lobby. We have a whole wall.
We have a wall of stars, and every star represents a CIA officer that's been killed overseas, usually undercover, in the line of duty, in a foreign country. And I thought, oh my God, that's how you end up on the wall. I briefly wondered what my insurance company would say, learning that I had been killed in alias. I wasn't sure, you know, in a false name. I wasn't sure how that would work.
But that was a brief moment. I was scared to death. I almost couldn't breathe. My heart was racing. My pulse was pounding. I was cold, but I had sweat running down my back. My heart was in my ears. I had never been that close to that kind of evil, and it simply was stunning. And while I sat there frozen, he broke that look, turned on his heels with his guards, and walked out into the lobby.
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Chapter 5: What does it mean to have an invisible platform as a First Lady?
I came back to the States and eventually was promoted to deputy chief of disguise and then to chief of disguise, where my duties included managing a worldwide staff that was rather difficult to manage. And I enjoyed the work very much. After I retired, I hung a picture in my library, rather discreetly, a picture of that moment in the White House in the Oval Office.
And what you see in the picture is the semicircle, the group of men, the woman talking to the president, And before the masks that I was wearing, before those masks were declassified, people would stop in and they'd look at that picture and they'd say, who's that? Who is it? Did you know her? Who's that woman in that picture? Was that a friend? And I would say, well, yes, thank you.
I knew her very well. I knew her very, very well. We were really, really close. Thank you.
Jonna Mendez worked at the CIA for 27 years and retired as chief of the disguise division. For 27 years, she lived her life undercover with the recurring fear that she would die and no one would know who she really was and the people she loved wouldn't know what happened to her.
Chapter 6: What insights did Eliza gain about gender equality?
She would just disappear. She described the work she did constructing disguises for officers whose lives were on the line as similar to creating a kind of body armor. Jonna Mendez is the author of a memoir entitled In True Face and is currently working on a novel inspired by events from her days in the CIA. You can see pictures of Jonna and find out more about her on our website, themoth.org.
That's it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. From all of us at The Moth, have a story-worthy week. Meg Bowles is one of the founding members of The Moth. Over the decades, she has helped a wide array of storytellers craft their stories and has directed main stage shows everywhere from Anchorage to London. She is an author of the New York Times bestselling book, How to Tell a Story.
This episode of the Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Sollinger. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Cloutier, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust, and Patricia UreƱa. The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey.
Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reese Dennis. All moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.