For liberty

I don't know if it's that I've been reading The Awakening again and that I keep sensing feverish emotions blowing over me like the mist from the sea...but lately I've been feeling restless to the point of anguish.  Tonight in class I could barely keep still.  I felt like a bird's wings were beating against my skull.  A firefly shaking the lid of a mason jar.  I hope my spirit will level off soon, because this bird is starting to give me a migraine!  My head is too small for so many ribbons of thought.  I know it's the English teacher in me, but I can't help thinking of Jane Eyre, longing for liberty and pacing her balcony...

(from pretty pink shoes)

"I could not help it; the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.  Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third story, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it-- and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended-- a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence."

~jane eyre~