Hello, I’m Myfanwy Morgan, a 27-year-old musician currently based in Inverness, and I’ve been asked to write about my newly-released single Their Ode to Caithness in the lead up to performing it (and several other original pieces) live at Under Canvas!
Their Ode to Caithness (I'll refer to it as TOTC from now on) hopefully does what it says on the tin. It’s their (referencing me being non-binary and using they/them/theirs pronouns) ode to Caithness (explaining my relationship with my home county of Caithness).
To say that that relationship was fraught is an understatement. However, 'distance makes the heart grow fonder' has played a big part in re-contextualising my view of Thurso (my hometown) and Caithness as a whole. It seems to be common that when artists/creatives are asked how they feel about their home area, they speak about having been othered at school or in the community overall, especially if the community is a small or rural one. This is only made worse if you're a queer person, and this is what I strove to unpack in the lyrics of TOTC.
I remember a night spent crying on the bathroom floor after my brother came out as gay - so very younger sibling of me; this was meant to be my brother's trauma moment. From then, I actively suppressed the queer parts of myself, as although my parents have grown immensely since then, my dad’s response wasn't brilliant. Because if a parent's 'unconditional' love could be shaken so easily with two words, imagine what my peers at school could do with it.
They feel connected to the masculine peat-filled soil and dirt / They feel connected to the feminine flowing water from the burns / They're a part of both of these yet somehow feel they don't belong
Then I left Caithness and saw more queer people living authentically. It was wonderful, I was so happy for them and went from passive 'ally' to fierce 'ally'. You would like to think this was enough to give up the act, but it took having a life-expectancy-altering medical diagnosis to finally come out as queer in my sexual identity. Several years later, I came out as non-binary. Subconsciously, I’d soft launched my sexuality to lead up to this hard launch. After all, gender identity is for the 2020s what homosexuality was for the 80s.
I have reflected a lot on what aspects of the landscape of Caithness will have influenced my identity. When I say landscape, I don’t mean socio-political or anything though. That’s where most of my animosity towards Caithness came from in the first place. I needed to start viewing it as what it is, first and foremost. The scenery, the landmarks, the views. And from there, I was able to connect what has shaped aspects of my gender identity. Such as peat being heavy and harvested from the land by laborious means, and water being seen as elegant and graceful, using the social expectations of what gender has become; to create art that reconciles my connection to a place that had previously felt alienating.
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