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- [00:00]
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- [02:06]
Meg Bowles
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. 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 Mom.
- [02:57]
Eliza Reed
One spring Evening back in 2016, I just finished cooking supper for my four kids who were 2, 4, 6 and 8 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 Goodney on television that day and he was so impressed with what Ghdni had to say that he just thought he would call and pass on the message that he thought Ghudni 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 were 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 re election for the election that year. Now of course a scandal like the Panama paper scandal that affected our own politicians was huge news in in Iceland and the television cut to just ongoing commentary on what was going on. And my husband Gudni 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 in neutral, non partisan, 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 Goodnae that day on tv and he too and some colleagues had been so impressed by what they saw that he had looked at my number in the phone book and thought he would change, just call and suggest that Goodney consider running for President of Iceland. The phone kept ringing and I remember thinking wow, when Gidney 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, just DMs, text messages, instant messages, all saying exactly the same thing to him. Now, Gidney 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 curve ball. All we could do was catch it and run. So Gydni declared that he was running for president of Iceland, and the election was held seven weeks later. It happened that quickly, and on August 1, 2016, I became Iceland's forsata fruit. For those of you who don't speak Icelandic, that literally means president's wife. Now you can. 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 to. What was I going to 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 honor 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 putrid shark and fish soup. I met Bjork and Loewe. But all of a sudden I was thrust onto the national stage as somebody's wife. And although I'm incredibly proud to be Gudni'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. That felt as if my own identity had been subsumed under his greater Persona. Just tiny little things. Like, we would show up together at a grand opening and there'd be a photo on the COVID of the newspaper the next day. And the photo caption would simply say, president attends. Or when I did go to events, I wasn't asked about my opinions on things. I was asked what I was wearing or who was looking after the kids. Right now, one day we were hosting reception at the Presidential residence. And there's always a receiving line that you go through. And this gentleman came in and he shook my husband's hand. And then I don't know whether it was kind of overwhelming to meet the President of the country or he was excited about the bubbly that he was about to get in the next room, or he simply didn't see the 5 foot 6 human being standing next to the President. But for whatever reason, he came in, he shook my husband's hand, and then he walked right on past me into the other room. And this happened a few times at that reception and at other receptions. And at each time I had stood there, smile at the ready, hand outstretched, and then each time they would go past me, I would sort of withdraw my hand, thinking, I mean, they didn't really need to meet me, did they? Now, I know this was unintentional. Nobody chose to say, ha, ha, we're going to stick it to Eliza by not reading her. But each little unintentional ghosting represented this little grain of sand that added to this growing nugget of self doubt that maybe I didn't quite belong there, or I wasn't doing this by the right rules. And of course, I didn't tell anybody because it's the tiniest of gripes that somebody didn't shake my hand. In fact, I was more angry at myself thinking, why is this bugging me? The person's already shaken the hand of the head honcho. That should be enough. And yet I know as a feminist, as a woman, that the patriarchy or social mores or standards or whatever you want to call it, has traditionally marginalized women's voices and women's contributions and women's presences. And I began to think that maybe that's something I can do with this invisible platform, is I can confound expectations about female spouses of male heads of state. A couple of years later, there's a Facebook post that then European Council President Donald Tusk puts on Instagram. And it's an image of four women, wives of G7 leaders, at the G7 meeting. And their backs are to the camera and. And they're gazing out to the sunset. And the caption says, the lighter side of the force. As if these accomplished, original, talented women, women to whom I could identify then in many ways, were merely some kind of beautiful muses for their husband's genius. And I remember seeing this and thinking, ugh, it's too bad that I'm first lady, because if I weren't, I would put post something about this. And then I had an epiphany of sorts and I realized I am first lady and I don't have a rule book, but I do have a blue checked Facebook account and no one to tell me what I can or can't put on it. And so I posted something about it, talking about these women and how it didn't behoove anybody to. To reduce them to some kind of vital window dressing for affairs of state. I hit post and I got on a flight that I was doing that had no WI fi. And when I landed, there was all kinds of comments on the post, as you can maybe imagine, one of which was from an old friend who said, you should really write an op ed about this for a big paper. And as a writer, I thought that would be incredible. I'd love to do an op Ed, but I'm First Lady. I can't write an op Ed. Or can I? Once again, no rule book meant I could do what I wanted. And I thought, if I don't tell anybody I'm pitching this story, no one can try to talk me out of it. So I aimed big. I pitched a story to the New York Times, and I got to work writing, including a line which is a bit of A clumsy metaphor, but is something I began, became a little bit remembered by, which is this I'm not my husband's handbag, which he can grab as he runs out the door and display silently by his side at public appearances. Now, the night before this story was set to be published, I tossed and I turned and I couldn't get to sleep at all. And I remember thinking, what have you done? You're just asking for trouble. You're just asking for Internet trolls to come out there and say things people are going to say. You're whining, you're complaining about things. You're too privileged to make these comments. Somebody might even think I'm a bad writer. But I woke up again the next morning and the comments were really, really largely positive. I actually remember there was a Biden era White House correspondent who retweeted that she thought the first lady of Finland was a badass. You're welcome to Finland. But you know, I realized that very few people end up married to a head of state, but a great many people, very often women, end up married to someone who, for whatever reason, is better known than they are and they could relate to what that does to their identity. And I know that I'm very fortunate. Even any other first lady that had published an unauthorized op ed in the the New York Times without first having it vetted, approved, or even written by a team of PR professionals, they would be raked over the coals in all likelihood. But I was the first lady of Iceland. Iceland is the country closest in the world to closing the gender gap, although we are not there yet. And even though we have a population of 400,000, we can punch above our weight in some things, including in this area. And that to me was very important. So I persisted. I made sure I shook everybody's hand at all the receptions, I spoke at events, I did speeches, I did many events alone. I continued my paid work that I was also doing. And I even ended up writing a book about gender equality and the women of Iceland. And after my husband's two terms or eight years as president, I realized that even though I'd craved a manual or a rulebook at the beginning, a bit like Dorothy in the wizard of Oz, I came to the realization that just through living my life, I had accumulated all of the tools that I would need to make the most of that unexpected opportunity, I realized that life is really just often a series of beautiful uncertainties. I didn't change the world serving as first lady, but I hope that I did my part to Nudge things in the right direction to make the most of the beautiful opportunity I had been given, even if I didn't read the instructions first. Thank you, Takvidish.
- [17:30]
Meg Bowles
Eliza Reed is a writer and founder of the annual Icelandic Writers Retreat. Eliza served as first lady of Iceland from 2016 to 2024. Eliza and I sat down recently to talk more about her time as first lady and what that experience taught her. Suddenly, you walk into this world and you know, there's no defined roles, there's no right, and yet there are all these expectations on you. I'm curious, what were those expectations?
- [18:02]
Eliza Reed
Yeah, I mean, I. And I had. So I had this bit of a taster of what I might be getting myself into even before, you know, my husband had officially announced he was going to run for president. But when we were seriously considering it because this stylist called our house because we had to do a brochure, as you do, with a happy, photogenic family on the front, to encourage people to vote for my husband. And he said to me something like, how would you describe your personal style? And I remember, because, you know, I think I was, like, changing a diaper, and I had my phone wedged underneath my ear and I'm trying to point to the kids, just turn the television down and stop fighting with each other. And he says, how's your personal style? And I remember thinking, well, my maternity pants still fit really well, and I last bought shoes five years ago or something. And there was this kind of. There was this sort of silence at the other end of the line, has someone thinking, okay, we're going to have to come over and have a conversation with you. So I suppose, you know, when it comes to expectations, one of those has to do with what we think a First lady looks like in many senses. And then there's all these other things that it's meant to be. This. This very sort of supportive role for the genius, the sort of the softer side to his strong male leader. And of course, I'm very supportive of my husband. Of course I'm proud of my husband, but I wouldn't consider being my husband's wife my defining characteristic as a human being. So that was some. Those are some of the things that I grappled with as we embarked on this unexpected adventure.
- [19:42]
Meg Bowles
I mean, I was kind of amazed to learn that, I mean, I know you didn't get paid to be first Lady. Obviously you're not an elected official, but did you have a staff or a budget or. Because you were asked to do things in that role of first lady, weren't you?
- [19:58]
Eliza Reed
So, as you said, it's a very gray area in a sense, because as you said, of course, I wasn't an elected official without a job title. So there's no salary, there's no dedicated staff, There's. There's nothing like that. But when you host incoming heads of state, when you. When there are official visits or big occasions, it is rather expected that the spouse will go along. And I was happy to do that. I was excited to do that. I loved doing it, and it was an incredible honor. And I suppose an advantage in Iceland was that it was also important for me to continue with my paid work. So while I stopped doing certain projects, I continued, for example, running the Iceland writers retreat, because that's my professional baby, if you will. So that was something that was really important for my own identity to think, well, why should I quit my job because my husband was elected to a new one. And to me, it was such an unexpected and wonderful opportunity to have my voice heard, to work to kind of confound expectations, to give women voices, even though, you know, we're. We're, quote, unquote, merely the. The spouse is there. But to say that I have a voice, I can speak up about issues, that, to me, was an opportunity that I didn't want to let pass me by.
- [21:17]
Meg Bowles
So my last question. How do you feel you're different from the woman that you were prior to walking into that role? How do you think that role changed you or affected you?
- [21:26]
Eliza Reed
Personally, I think sometimes I'm asked and I sound like some sort of cliched brochure, but it really is true that I would say that it's made me more of an optimistic. And I like to think that I'm a pretty upbeat, positive person regardless, but still a pragmatist, still a realist. And really to have that privilege and that opportunity of serving in a role where I got to see, you know, not just say a grand opening or meeting kings and queens or all of these sort of fancy, dare I say, superficial, although I don't mean it that way, things. But, you know, I met the woman who started the puppetry festival in this little village in Iceland. And I met the members of the Lions Club who fundraised to get a new medical machine in their small healthcare center. And I met the choir director who led the choir for 40 years in this village in the westwards. And those are the things that really stick with me, because most people, most people are good people. It reinforced my faith, despite all of the negativity which absolutely exists. There's so, so many challenges that we need to be tackling now, but I suppose it enabled me to see that in the face of a tremendous number of incredibly serious global challenges, the likes of which many of us, dare I say it, in our kind of secluded, high income country, bubbles haven't necessarily seen in our lifetimes. The opportunity to see these things gave me hope that we will all have the enthusiasm, the drive, the belief, the conviction that we can all do our part in some small way.
- [23:17]
Meg Bowles
Eliza is the author of a Scandi Noir mystery series. The first book was entitled Death on the island, followed by Death of a Diplomatic. She also has a memoir, the First Lady Next Door, where you can read all about her unexpected adventures as the first lady of Iceland. Up next, what happens when being seen puts your life in jeopardy? That's after the break.
- [23:42]
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- [24:41]
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- [25:46]
Meg Bowles
welcome back. Sometimes being seen can have dire consequences. It can put someone in harm's way. Our next storyteller, Johnna Mendez made a career of not being seen. Here's Johnna Mendez live at the Mall.
- [26:04]
Johnna Mendez
So I was standing in a hallway outside of the Oval office in Washington, D.C. i was standing there with six men. I didn't know I was chief of disguise at the time at the CIA and I was wearing a disguise. But they had no idea. It was slow because the meeting in the Oval was going long. We were going to go in and brief President George H.W. bush. And we were kind of stuck for a few minutes. Then finally the doors opened and we went in. And the president is sitting in the Oval Office behind the Resolute desk with these wonderful windows behind him. He's backlit. There was a semi circle of chairs in front of that desk. There were six chairs. And I went to the one that I already knew where to be. I had to step very carefully across the presidential seal in the carpeting and I didn't want to step on it. Took my seat. Everybody else took their seat and I went first. This was the president's morning briefing. I was going to give the first speak and then I was going to be the first one to leave. I was wearing the first animated full face mask that my disguise office had produced. And I was going to brief the president wearing it. And he had no idea. I took him pictures of himself when he had been head of state, CIA. Oh, he had a mustache. He had some different glasses. It was a small disguise. I said, we've gotten much better since you left. He said, like what? I said, I'm going to take it off and show you. He said, wait, wait, not yet. And he said, okay, take it off. And I did the Tom Cruise peel way before Tom Cruise did it. And I had the mask up in my hand, up in the air. The hair is still attached. It's a face and it's hair. The men in the semicircle, some had been listening, some had not. John Sununu, who was next to me, had not been listening. And he let out. I don't know if I would call it a shriek or a squeal. He was startled. And next. Next to him was Bob Gates, who had also been with CIA. And he just smiled. And on the far end was Brent Scowcroft, who was kind of scowling at me, holding my head up in the air. There was a White House photographer in the room, and she was going around taking pictures. It was a moment. This was something we'd worked on for 10 years and we were very proud of. So first one to brief. I was then the first one to. To leave. I went out to the outer office where the President's dog, Millie had just had puppies. And I was actually on the floor playing with the puppies when the photographer came out and said, what did you just do? Now I know she took the pictures because I could hear the shutters clicking. And I said, I can't talk about it. It's classified. And I think I put her out because it took 10 years to get the picture. I was. I was in CIA's office that resembled Q in the James Bond movies. We made all the toys for James. We made all the audio bugs, all the disguises, secret whity concealment devices. We didn't think a lot of James. He wasn't technical, but we made him whatever Jesus toys he thought he needed, and we were more than happy to provide them so that in this office of Q, I was one of the very few women that was working my way through it. I started out in clandestine photography. I had been a photographer when I joined the CIA at amateur. And I was now teaching foreign agents around the world in how to use our cameras to collect intelligence for the United States government. Now, you think camera, but you don't know what I'm talking about. My cameras would fit in a lipstick, a cigarette lighter, a key fob, a fountain pen. You could put it in a button behind your. You could put them anywhere. And so I'm training all of these agents in how to use those cameras, how to be safe, how to get the information back to us. It was an interesting place to begin because I was in the CIA and undercover. Everything I did, every trip I took, every operation I took part in. I was typically using false documents, false name, and false look. I was wearing disguise everywhere I went. The foreign agents that I was training, they all knew me as Jane from Washington. That was my cover name. It was not very exciting, but it worked really well. There was a lot of obfuscation. There was a Lot of problems with neighbors and good friends who had no idea where I worked or what I did. And so I told a good number of lies to them to try and cover the constant travel that I was undertaking. It was, it was a bad method of keeping your old friends, but I made a lot of new ones and eventually I moved on to disguise. Disguise was a fascinating new field that I wanted to be in. I went to Hollywood and got involved with the areas of deception, illusion and magic behind the scenes in la. So we were playing both sides of the game. We could provide almost anything that our case officers needed to do their jobs. Always undercover, always with false documents, always with disguise. The whole point was never to be seen. You wanted to be invisible. Being seen could get you killed or the foreigners that, that you were working with. This was a dangerous, dangerous game. So I was visiting a CIA station in the subcontinent. I was there to do a routine photo assignment. And the chief of station said, we have an emergency. I've been contacted by a terrorist who I met once before when he was in some real trouble. And he's in trouble. This terrorist, he's being sought by his, his own terrorist organization is chasing him. Interpol is chasing him. The security service of the country that we are in right now is chasing him. This man is desperate, he is dangerous, and he's telling me that he knows of a plan to bring down an American commercial jet. I have to meet this man. If there's information, I have to get this information. 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 shawwar kameez, which is the local costume of 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. 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, 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, so 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. 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 5 foot 4, wearing his shalwar kameese. 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 shawar 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 and I watched him go. And I thought, this is what luck looks like if you ever think you're lucky. That was the day that I thought I was lucky. Doing the kind of work that I did cost me a lot of things. It cost me a lot of friends. None of my neighbors, none of my friends back then knew what I did, where I was, who I worked for. It's probably one of the reasons that a lot of people at the CIA, we marry each other, we know who we can trust, and they're the people inside that building with us. Over the years, I changed. When I first came to CIA, I was a young female officer looking for a job, something worth doing, something that would make a difference. Over time, the job, the work, changed me entirely. I discovered that my ambition receded and that my need for recognition disappeared. I discovered that invisibility actually suited me. I traveled all over the world. 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 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.
- [39:59]
Meg Bowles
Johnna 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. 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. Gianna 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 Janna 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
- [40:46]
Mark Solinger
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 mainstage shows everywhere from Anchorage to London. She is an author of the New York Times best selling book how to Tell a Story. This episode of the Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin, Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Mark Solinger. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Clouche, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust and Patricia Urenia. The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to to their executive producer Leah Rhys 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 spring just
- [41:45]
Johnna Mendez
slid into your DMs.
- [41:46]
Eliza Reed
Grab that boho. Look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals
- [41:49]
Johnna Mendez
that can keep up with you, and
- [41:51]
Eliza Reed
hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic.