Mew Year, Mew You
Yes, it always happens in Septempurr π»
If you havenβt yet been claimed by a cat, please send word through the USPSPSPSPS. If the cats are feline good, they will expedite the shipment of a tiny cat through the universal cat distribution system to you.
And now for some hooman attempts at sharing mews. Nya has been hard at work teaching her hooman cat skills.
New Year, New Me
Yes, it always happens in September π»
Hello~ Itβs me, AnyΔ. The hooman behind Paw Cat Guide attempting to make mews. I am the hooman Nya is so worried about. Iβve been instructed to learn cat skills. I am currently a cat in training, Nya has purrsonally taken me under her wing er.. paw.
Nya and I celebrated our purrthdays on September 16, earlier this month. What are the odds that we share a purrthday?!
Nya will purrbaly catch you up on her royal celebration sometime. I spent the day reflecting. All of the thinking, all of the ruminating, all of the ugly crying that followed has resulted in this Substack.
Come let me take you through some of my stream of consciousness.
From Closed To Open
Some of you may have been receiving Mewsletter in a different format, through Mailchimp directly in your inbox.
Iβm amazed a whole bunch of you on the imternets are kind + generous with your attention *ahem* towards catsβ¦ weβre now doing this correspondence.
But uhβ¦ I stopped paying for Mailchimp since I didnβt really make money from this. But did I want to make money from this? Yes and no.
Yes, because I see making silly cat jokes on the imternets as my art, and I want my art practice to thrive. I want my art practice to fulfill me. I love world-building, storytelling, cats, reflecting & growing, and playing. Did I already say playing?
No, because Iβm not holding your card right now and swiping for a subscription. Iβm not going to ask you, force you, beg you, and pressure you to gib me the monies.
Give it, when you feel like it, if you feel like it. But I have to add maybe the cats will not stop asking for chimken food monies, they r vry serious.
Stay, read, explore, and go on adventures with me and Nya regardless of the money part.
I hope Mewsletter will bring you joy and cat chaos on Caturdays. I also hope Mewsletter will give you a window into building a world (maybe even more of your world?) with purrmission to play more and meet your inner child as I do mine.
Please be seated for cat joy every Caturday in your inbox.
I moved to Substack to make it an open practice of turning up. I donβt want to have to feel the pressure of βbreaking evenβ or βmaking moniesβ from this. For now, I really want to turn up and build a practice of making my art in public.
Please follow me if you enjoy it. Please also share if you think this will put a smile on someoneβs face.
I did a lot of things and felt quite lonely. Thereβs a quiet comfort in knowing someone somewhere out there on the imternets is reading this, and I thank you dear fellow hooman!
Caturday Delight
Please be the enjoy the amazement I made today. NO!!!! I will not sell my sticker collection to you. This shop is not open for business! π€
I call this piece βNew Year, New Meβ to celebrate the recent birthday milestone. Before I can write, I can only express my thoughts in abstract visuals :β)
I couldnβt think of a better way to use my crafting supplies (that were bought when I was chasing some shiney new idea, and I sincerely hope to put them to use at some except the βsome pointβ never usually arrives and I eventually have years worth of craft supplies sitting in my drawers and boxes).
Paws & Ponder With Me
As I celebrated my 31st birthday, I was overjoyed to feel even more like a kid. After spending more than a decade battling inner demons, scary monsters and an unhappy life, I feel relief. So much relief to see myself still alive.
But WAIT. Not only am I alive, itβs the quality of alive-ness in my life that Iβm overwhelmed by and blown away by.
In 2013, ten years ago, I could swear life wasnβt worth living.
But in 2023, Iβm here to tell you life is every bit worth living for and fighting for.
Of birth & re-birth
In 2013, I peaked in the dark night of my soul era.
The βdark night of the soulβ is a term that goes back a long time. Yes, I have also experienced it. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in lifeβ¦an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. Β The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression. Nothing makes sense anymore, thereβs no purpose to anything.
Eckhart Tolle on the Dark Night of the Soul
I quote Eckhart because the name seems so familiar like I have seen the name in so many places, yet I couldn't tell you exactly where or why I know that name. That, and also because I really did feel all those feels that he describes as the dark night of the soul.
2013 nearly took my life. I was in so much pain that I wanted to end the pain. So in a moment of weakness, i took a strip of pills. But then, guess what, my genius brain rationally thought this through AFTER said pills were in anya belly. So I drove myself Need for Speed style to the hospital to A&E to get help.
One day Iβll tell you about it with the appropriate trigger warning. Today is not that day apparently. And when I tell you, youβll discover that I was not in a police chase, it was not nighttime, and I wasnβt doing illegal things. Except maybe I broke a few traffic rules on the way. And I can also confirm I did have hype music playing in the background.
You already know the ending to this story though. Iβm still here in 2023, more alive and well than ever.
Through it all, I found comfort in unexpected corners: my two cats, Boo and Lilly, and my mental manifestation of love and careβNya.
So am I a writer now?
It's funny that I have to write to make this Mewsletter. I've been dreading this moment, and I've been putting it off for so long. It's hard to see myself write anything, let alone writing my thoughts or calling myself a writer.
I get stuck in the definition of writing, which is to say, I write something on paper with my pen, or maybe I type something on a computer. But I think after sitting with it for a while, I realized maybe a lot of the writers I like β¦I don't actually know their processes, but I like what they have to say.
For the longest time, I've been feeling like maybe there are things I would like to say, but I don't quite know how to express it.
I don't quite know where to begin.
I quite don't know how to do it.
I struggle to take on the word writer, or the identity of a writer, but funnily enough, I was in a writer's festival one time. I thought it was an accident, but people around me kept saying it was not.
But just because someone says something is one way, it doesn't change my internal experience. I realized, maybe I feel disempowered to see myself as a writer, because at some point, I lost my voice. I lost confidence in expressing my voice, my personal voice β a voice that shares my worldview with conviction, with my values, and from my perspective.
Abuse does strange things to you, and losing my voice through years of abuse was the same as losing myself. One day Iβll tell you about it when Iβm ready. Again, today is not that day.
Who was I without my voice? A puppet who repeated things that other people said? Who did the same things that other people did? I've been on a quest for a few years to find my way back to my voice.
This is part of my journey, and I hope you'll join me.
The Paw Cat Guide Mewsletter is a distinct way I express myself. Itβs a way to give myself purrmission to be playful, a way to soothe my anxiety. To ease the demands and ease the expectations of things unraveling around me. To make space for discomfort in a comfortable way.
Mews is from Nya to you with love π»
A hooman attempting Mews is my way of documenting reflections and explorations from my life as a queer, disabled, neurodivergent artist from the sunny island of Singapore.
Iβve been exploring things about work, life, play, connection with myself, and helping myself through mental health battles. Iβm discovering my gender identity, expressing my gender identity, and navigating the limitations my body faces through a chronic pain disorder.
I also want to share what it means to build Nya's world, how I give myself permission to play, how I end up at the designs, and the complex, fascinating process of creating experience art through world-building and storytelling.
It's not all going to be grim, but I hope you'll make space for some of these thoughts.
Follow our adventures if you like?
I understand you probably signed up for cute cats. (Yes, I admit. I did trick you!) But stay if you like them and are open to reading something a little bit more.
As I begin this practice of exercising my voice, I fully understand that this may not align with what you expect in your inbox. And you can unsubscribe.
If you like it, maybe come hang out and play with us?
Nyaβs gift to you~
If you like the new explorations, AND your cat gibs us a paw paw of approval, Nya would like to make a Paw of Fame with your catβs picture in it. Nya pawmises to get her hooman to make a speshΓΌl collage to celebrate your beloved cat to add to the Paw of Fame and treat your cat with utmost respect that every cat deserves.
Simply mew-mail a purrty picture of your cat to pawcatguide@substack.com with your catβs name.
More than one cat welcome. All non-cats welcome too. Except no hoomans. That is where the cats draw the line, they simply cannot see hands as paws.
