Bri Arden

To those of you who keep journals and can look back ‘a year from today’… isn’t it incredible to see all that has happened in one year? Who you were, who you loved, what you thought, what you believed, what you dreamed, what you wanted, your biggest fear, your ambitions, your secrets… a year ago today? How has it all played out? If you don’t have these thoughts written down from a year ago today, write them down NOW… and you’ll have them a year from now, today. (Write somewhere in there that Bri MADE you do it :)… and then next year let me know) XO B

Can’t wait for her lecture tomorrow after reading her ethnography The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power Through Bedouin Women 

Brilliant

“My argument in this paper has been that we should learn to read in various local and everyday resistances the existence of a range of specific strategies and structures of power. Attention to the forms of resistance in particular societies can help us become critical of partial or reductionist theories of power. The problem has been that those of us who have sensed that there is something admirable about resistance have tended to look to it for hopeful confirmation of the failure—- or partial failure of system oppression. Yet is seems to me that we respect everyday resistance not just by arguing for the dignity of heroism of the resistor but by letting their practices teach us about the complex inter-workings of historically changing structures of power.” -Lila Abu-Lughod 

Just heard my mastered album for the first time… Im a complete, bizarre, happy, crying MESS!!! :D 

Thank you NY for legalizing same-sex marriage. Two dear friends of mine flew a log way to get married today. It makes me so happy seeing a couple so in love. #ILoveYouNewYork

“Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play… I tell you, that it is on things like these that our lives depend. ” -Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Remember who we are today, In 20 years when the pictures fade, ‘Cause you can’t rest a good life on the shelf.”

One of my closest friends recently went on a short trip. He brought me a book from a schoolhouse museum (not the gift shop part.) It’s an 1873 edition and it’s beautiful! It smells just like I want an entire room full of my favorite books to smell in my ‘someday home’ when I grow up.

He marked a page with the poem “The Little Sunbeam.”

He also brought me back a worry stone he found by the water. There’s a long story to the significance behind what these meant to him growing up. He gave it to me and told me the story.

I feel we have such a misunderstanding of what a gift is. These are them, and he is one. 

Writing an essay for a class: Women & Gender Politics in The Muslim World and referencing “Dreams of Trespass: Tales of A Harem Girlhood”… There’s no place for this passage in the paper, but it stuck with me so I thought I’d share :) XO B

“Happiness she would explain, was when a person felt good, light, creative, content, loving, loved, and free. An unhappy person felt as if there were barriers crushing her desires and the talents she had inside. A happy woman was one who could exercise all kind of rights, from the right to move to the right to create, compete, and challenge, and at the same time could feel loved for doing so. Part of happiness was to be loved by a man who enjoyed your strength and was proud of your talents. Happiness was also about the right to privacy, the right to retreat from the company of others and plunge into contemplative solitude. Or to sit by yourself doing nothing for a whole day, and not give excuses or feel guilty about it either. Happiness was to be with loved ones, and yet still feel that you existed as a separate being, that you were not there just to make them happy. Happiness was when there was a balance between what you gave and what you took.” 

Dropped off at home in a police car. #CopAskedForMyNumber #NotKidding #LongDayLongStoryAndGoodnight

I sang this song last night at an MS Benefit concert. Thank you NYC Art Scene for having me! It was such an honor to be a part of such a special evening. Does everyone remember this song? It’s a good one :) XO B

“YOU GOTTA BE”

Listen as your days unfolds
Challange what the future holds
Try to keep your head up to the sky
Lovers they may cause you tears
Go ahead release your fears
Stand up and be counted
Don’t be shamed to cry

You gotta be… you gotta be bad
You gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard
You gotta be tough
You gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool
You gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know… love will save the day

Herald what you mother said
Read the books your father read’
Try to solve the puzzles in your own sweet time
Some may have more cash then you
Others take a different view
My oh my, hey hey hey

You gotta be… you gotta be bad
You gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard
You gotta be tough
You gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool
You gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know… love will save the day

Time asks no questions, it goes on without you
Leaving you behind if you can’t stand the pace
The world keeps on spinning, can’t stop it if you tried to
The best part is danger staring you in the face

Listen as your days unfolds
Challange what the future holds
Try to keep your head up to the sky
Lovers they may cause you tears
Go ahead release your fears
My oh my, hey hey hey

You gotta be… you gotta be bad
You gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard
You gotta be tough
You gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool
You gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know… love will save the day

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. 28 years and going strong. I love the way I do because of you.