I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the importance of feeding the spirit. It’s easy to go through the days of our lives caught up in the need to feed the body and its many cravings, whether we are the bold and the beautiful, or just the young and the restless, because as the world turns life has to be more than a soap opera, right? Don’t we yearn for more than dark shadows, somewhere away from the edge of night, seeking another world, a world that’s not filled with desperate housewives?!

What feeds your spirit? Yes, you, and please stop watching General Hospital for a moment. Just record it and watch it later. Or, better yet, let me give you the recap:

A new year is upon us, and some folks are making lists. Try this list. Name five things you can do in bed. Yes, I know it sounds like something you’d see on a Cosmo cover, but that’s not where I’m going with this.

If you’d like to play along, make a mental list right now of five things you can do in bed. Each person’s list will be different, and that’s a good thing. There are no wrong answers. When you have your list ready, continue reading.

All right, here’s my list. The first two are the obvious ones, so I’ll just name them and move on. My first two are sleeping and … the other thing. Let’s be romantic and call it cuddling, along with its many variations.

More voices on the page, or on the computer screen of this blog, continue to echo into the first hours of a new year. Here are some more of the voices that brightened “A Little Romance” in 2009.

Ghislaine Chock, whose poems “The Phone” and “The Office” appear in the new Bamboo Ridge collection … I asked Ghislaine to comment on the creation of these two poems and the inspiration for them:

The creation of these poems came naturally. I learned from Eric that even if you are not a poet one can express feelings, moments, emotions, etc. through poetry. I am more than fortunate to live with a poet. Poets are able to make you understand and see the world through their keen eyes with exquisite sensitivity. That is their function.