A YEAR THAT HAS NEVER BEEN

As this year becomes the next, My first feeling is gratitude. 

All 2024 I've stewed over politics and now it's done and will be worse next year.  For two years now we've grieved over the same wars and the misery of hostages, Gazans, Ukrainians, Syrians and more.  For decades we've fought for gun safety and yet our children are calling 911 to report shooters in their schools.  Forever, we face our own or another's chronic or unexpected illnesses. . . .  

but for a time, as this year becomes next, we put these cares aside.  We have to.  We cannot live always on high alert for suffering.  We need times to look for joy.  We need to quietly watch the Cardinal at the feeder, admire the earth and sky, and re-count our blessings.  

So we put on our party clothes and toast the New Year.  The gunshots we hear are celebratory.  The greetings are happy.  late or early, we climb into our beds to embrace each other and bid the old year goodbye.  Or if we'd rather, we ignore it all and have a lovely night off, knowing we wake to a shiny new year.

Maybe that's why at Christmas we sing, "Joy to the world."  Not just to prepare Christians for the birth of a Savior, but to remind us all that we ourselves were born to be joyous.  We have a built-in need for happiness.  Babies know this.  They wiggle and smile and reach for us.  They teach us to love them.  Just days ago Christ came as such a one, tender and mild.

Each year the greatest gifts are life and love.  Never a year goes by that we do not give and receive love.  We keep old photos of those who nurtured our own babyhoods.  We receive phone calls and texts and gifts and visits.  The odds and ends we keep because of love are scattered about. On holidays I get out a three-tiered serving plate made by my daughter.  I wear a circle pin picked out by my son.  I hunt in my closet for something vintage for my granddaughter.  

It could be that some of us lost someone this year, expected and timely or grievously not.  Either way, we mourn.  Yet each of us is here in this irresistible world of beauty and longing to carry on in their memory.  So, yes, as the earth turns, the moon wanes and the sun rises, we can look forward to more good things, more challenges to be sure, but blessings just as surely.  

Have you noticed that whatever our age we feel we've lived long?  Forty-year-olds think they are old, thirty-year-olds the same. Only at the end might we feel that we haven't had time enough to love this earth and all its bounty.  We want another season.  

So here it is for us, 2025, a year that has never been.  We are its first inhabitants.  Welcome, new year.  We are grateful to meet you.  

                Nina Naomi

 

 

 

CHRISTMAS FUTURE, CHRISTMAS PAST

I am writing this the morning before Christmas Eve, 2024. Two mornings from now the Christ child will have been born again and that evening the first candle of Hanukkah will be lit.  The candles on the Advent wreath will have given way to the first candle on the menorah.  Christian homes will have red and gold paper strewn about, children over-sugared and cranky, and everyone needing a day of rest.  In Jewish homes, gift-opening may just be beginning. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus celebrated Hanukkah, also known as the Feast of Dedication.  Thus the beliefs of many flourish in their winter celebrations.  

When we were children, our birthdays and Christmases were magical.  Especially when we believed in Santa Clause, but even later as we were off school and there was snow, enough for snowforts and sledding and snowball fights.  We didn't have to shop or plan or cook until later in our lives.  As children, Christmas didn't put us in debt.  At our house, Grandma Giesler brought the ham, or some years hosted a turkey dinner in her dining room.  We cousins were spoiled. 

Years later my mother, by then a grandmother, made Christmas stockings for all of us--red quilted fabric with green rick-rack, trimmed with appliqués, beads and jingle bells.  We draw names, like a secret Santa gift exchange. In this way, she is still part of our celebration.  My Grandma Giesler's lace tablecloth has been our tree skirt for years. 

One year I made Christmas dinner in borrowed electric skillets and served it from the Clubhouse of the apartment complex where we lived.

Now I am third from the oldest in my immediate family.  More Christmases behind than ahead. They are still magical.  Everything about the preparation is magical.  I get to cut the greens from our forest, the berried branches from the holly and fill the vases with fragrant pine. I tell Alexa to "play classical Christmas music."  I wait for gifts to arrive on our stoop.  I go to cheerful, busy grocery stores to shop.  We keep the Advent candles company each Sunday and still send and receive a few Christmas cards in the mail.  Our Jewish friends are almost ready for their holy days to begin.  

And the celebrations will continue.  The shortest week of the year, between Christmas and New Year's, most of us see more family and friends.  Even those who work those days, get an extra day at New Year's.  The nights are still long and dark and give us breathing room.  Don't we always look forward to a new year?  

I hope to someday be remembered as my own grandmothers are, as someone who gave love and special attention, who imparted faith and joy and whom they might wish, in some way, to emulate.  

Merry Christmas to all.          Nina Naomi

CHRISTMAS IS ALMOST HERE

A quick thought standing at the kitchen sink:  I've almost got a handle on Christmas. A moment of pride. The menu in my head, the gifts mostly under the tree.  I'm not adrift and I'm the one who has to make it happen. I plan, I buy, I cook, I decorate, I wrap, I stack the log rack. I, I, I.

Then minutes later, looking out the window at the red sun behind the trees:  I don't make Christmas happen at all.  Whether I'm stressed or harried, the house a mess, the tree lights tangled, the cookies store-bought, the late arrival of a gift or two, nothing is about me.

Whatever made me think I needed a "handle" on Christmas?  When has that ever mattered? 

We will go to one of the many Christmas Eve services and sing Silent Night, Holy Night by candlelight. The family members who spend Christmas Eve at our house will arrive somewhere near the allotted time.  We will, in fact, have too much food for our small group.

The next day we will unwind, my husband and I and the day after more grandchildren will come.  No one cares if wrapping paper is strewn and the ham or turkey is left-over. Hopefully we will count our many blessings, our OK-to-good health, the warmth of our homes, the love of friends and family.    

Hopefully we will remember that Christmas is not about Santa or jingle bells or how many gifts we give or receive.  We will remember that Christmas is about our faith in the Christ child who was born in a manger to die and be resurrected on Easter Sunday and give us eternal life.  

And you and I will say, "In this we believe."  Lord, let us pray.  AMEN

  
 

THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN'T LOVE

The deer come by tonight at dusk

While I am standing still.

Night falls so early as it must.

I wait for dark until

It catches me by quick surprise,

The sun to sudden drop.

How cold and bright our winter eyes.

I wish that time would stop.

The day, bare trees, December stars, 

The white tail boundless free.

its home is one without false wars.

where I would rather be.

 

On cue I see the geese in flight.

They loudly cross the sky

To give the rising moon a fright.

Whole towns hear them squawk by.

It's darker now and all I feel

Is breath of faun and doe

Beneath the cedars settling in.

The geese are quiet too.

A Silent Night is such release,

To huddle close like deer.

Or wait for morning like the geese,

With nothing frightening near.

It's true there's nothing we can't love

If greed we keep at bay.

If our heart's focus is above

Where saints and angels play.

It helps to see the doe and stag,

The goose and gosling too.

The waxing and the waning moon,

The people called the poor.

 

It helps to know we're not alone, 

That we are creatures sure.   

That what's at stake is life on earth.

                                                 

                                                

 

 

                                                  

                                                 

 

YES, IT'S TIME TO GIVE THANKS

It's that time of year when everything is happening.  Thanksgiving is upon us.  I am thankful the celebration is at my house.  I am thankful that my granddaughter is helping me prepare.  Lots of chopping for the stuffing and the old-fashioned Golden Glow Jello salad from Grandma Edna's recipe box. Setting the table for eight this year, not that many.  I remember when it was more and we used two tables.  Or occasionally just me and my husband, and we travel.  Why not? 

Not that all is good.  One of our dear friends died last week.  You know how hard it is when someone you love dies.  We all know that.  You can't be alive and not know that.  We can't believe how fragile we all are.  We don't quite want life to go on as usual, it seems callous.  "Stop all the clocks...Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come," W. H. Auden wrote.  Then just now we got a call that my husband's college roommate is gravely ill.  I read a beautiful essay in the New York Times today by a woman who lost her teenage daughter Orli.  It hit home.  Tears are defining our week. 

And yet, eight people who are alive and well will be here on Thanksgiving.  We might have prayers, maybe silent, for others who aren't here and not doing so well.  But we will also have much for which to be thankful.  Our family, like yours, is full of love.  Our family, like yours, is coping.  This is the most wonderful of American holidays.  A day devoted entirely to giving thanks.  No other holiday is like that, not Christmas, not Easter, not Hannukah, not our birthdays or 4th of July.  Isn't it something--we don't give presents, we give thanks.  Our religion doesn't matter.  We just gather and enjoy food and each other.  

This year I am again thankful that my husband and I still have one another after so many years, and have not grown tired of our conversations, our playfulness, our needs; that our younger grandson decided to spend his summer with us; that our older grandson is graduating soon; that so much of the family is local and we see them often. 

I know the world is not this easy for many, for those who are the victims of war, for those who are poor, for those in harm's way.  But if that is not you, give thanks.  Give thanks and do for others.  Join the throngs who use Christmas as a giving time.  Live in the spirit of Christ by doing for others as you would have them do unto you.  

And if that is you, or has been you, give thanks anyway.  For what else is useful, helpful, consoling and comforting but to look for your blessings and give thanks?  Not one of us is without blessings.  Not one of us need despair.  Not one of us is not a child of God with the flutter of hope in their heart.  Not one.

Happy Thanksgiving, and the peace that passes all understanding be yours this day and tomorrow.  AMEN

A PRAYER POEM FOR TODAY

Mourning the loss of hope,

Missing those moments of joy,

We shelter in place

As if from a storm.

. . . 

We know that history is long

And tyrants are made of flesh,

That power corrupts but does not last.

. . . 

Hitler is dead.

Mussolini is dead.

Stalin is dead.

Saddam Hussein is dead. 

Judas is dead.

No resurrections there.

. . . 

Only love can defeat hate.

Only light can drive out darkness.

. . .

The fight is long,

The fight is hard,

The fight continues.

God bless the fight. 

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."  Martin Luther King, Jr.

NO, WE'RE NOT FINE

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard" H.L. Mencken, Satirist and Cultural Critic (l8980-1956)

today I was reading a poet who talked about greed and stupidity and hate.

Such everyday things now.

I could write a poem about that, I thought.

I read, I scroll, I listen to the news.

I see who's on deck, who's failing already.

But then I thought, I'll be OK.

The stock market's rising, I'll be OK. 

I have a home, I'll be OK.

I have health insurance, I'll be OK.

The woman who cleans my home, the man who mows my grass, they aren't criminals.

It must be the others that are.

The boy who loads my groceries, he isn't lazy.

It must be the others who are. 

The mothers and their children who shop with me in Food Lion, they're not vermin.

It must be the others who are.

I haven't met anyone who doesn't deserve a hand up, but I must be wrong. 

Anyway, I was born here, I'll be fine.

If I don't care about our country, the world, or the future, 

I'll be just fine.

On second thought, I'm not in the mood to write a poem.  

                               

                                                       Nina Naomi

A DAY FOR HYGGE, DEFINITELY

 "Complete absence of anything annoying or emotionally overwhelming."  This is part of the Danish concept of hygge, the term that captures feelings of coziness, warmth, charm and simplicity.  All things good.  I admit to needing, even longing, for that.  We don't want emotional overwhelm right now.  Our thresholds are low.  Mine is. 

The word comes originally from the Old Norse word hugga, which means to comfort or console, i.e. our word hug.  But in Denmark it's an entire cultural phenomenon and has become so here as well.  Especially in fall and winter, we strive for hygge (pronounced hooga) as we bring out our quilts, sweaters and cozy socks.  In our country, the concept so named became noticeably popular by 2017 when in response the Oxford English Dictionary added it to our vocabulary.  The same year The Little Book of Hygge became a hit.  Community, family, simple quiet times and warm feelings--who wouldn't be enchanted?

What intrigues me is the idea that we can create a spot, a mood, a corner or an evening devoid of the annoying or overwhelming.  That is definitely worth a try.  And since the Danes consistently win the competition for the world's happiest people--despite their long, cold, dark winters--who better to emulate.  

In a prior post I mentioned that we have been sitting by our fire pit in the evening, the one (of two) that got so much use during the pandemic.  While there's no way to remember fondly the fear Covid without a vaccine engendered, we might have fond memories of some of the ways we coped.  For example, we brought out warm throws and sat by the fire pit with friends, chili bubbling in the crockpot under the market lights and candles spread about, their flames flickering into the dark.  Our Maltipoo Wiggles took turns lap-warming.  I knitted hats for Christmas gifts.  It was, despite all, a hygge season.  

And that's where we are now.  Post-election, nursing our wounds, guarding our hearts and Thanksgiving around the corner.  Leaves falling or fallen, wanting very much not to be overwhelmed or anxious.  I love the idea of taking control of our own well-being by snuggling under lap robes by a fire with a warm drink and a book or movie.  I love the idea of herding the kids onto the couch, even though my own kids are grown.  I love, don't you, these early nights with comfort food and soft pajamas?  

Let's think of all the things that make us feel warm, loved, happy and at peace.  Then let's pursue them.  If there's something unpleasant holding forth in your mind, shut it out.  Don't give it space. Not today. Take a mental and emotional break from annoyances or worse and love yourself and each other.  Let fragrances loose everywhere:  vanilla tea, cinnamon cider, apple pie, pumpkin spice lattes, cedar branches mixed with holly.  Add in the family quilt that someone carefully made with generations in mind, knowing it would outlive her.  Find a cuddler--a dog, a child.  Even chickens purr like cats, I've been told.  Pick up your favorite craft and have on music in the background. 

Draw your life in or let it expand, whatever works best for you.  This is not the time for emotional overwhelm.  Let the hygge begin.       Nina Naomi 

 

  

THE DAYS ARE ABLAZE

How can it be November?  But that's what I say each month.  How can it be October, or September, or August?  Don't you?  

For us and our neighbors, October means leaves.  And early November, still a red and golden world outdoors here in the North Carolina Piedmont.  Not so in Western North Carolina.  Our beautiful mountain communities were hit hard this year, tragic flooding, landslides and tornadoes.  Lives were lost.  Every place our family has ever visited in the Blue Ridge Mountains is under reconstruction. So all over our state, joys are tempered.  

But somehow, there is still pleasure in the changing season. What we feel first is an atmospheric change.  The somnolence of summer is over; where heat enervated, crisp air energizes.  Without the glare of the months just past, colors flare more vibrant.  Green in the warmth of August, with colder mornings the leaves' chlorophyll retreats, leaving carotenoid pigments in charge, boasting orange, yellow and gold, like the pumpkins and squashes covering patches and gardens. But only briefly.  Soon the ground will be covered with brown, not yellow leaves. The flamboyant decay will become stealthier. 

At the same time, sunrise and sunset reach their peak luminescence. With less water vapor in the air, we see more clearly.  Colors appear more vivid.  I never understood why before, but this year did some simple research on the science of autumn. It's so interesting.  As the earth turns on its axis away from the sun, light has to travel further to reach our eyes. Blue light scatters out long before it reaches us.  Only red and orange can make the 150 million kilometers to reach our eyes in a blazing sunrise or sunset.

So enjoy this beautiful sight, if you are lucky enough to share it with me. With thanks for whatever is before us.     Nina Naomi

IT'S NOVEMBER. CAN WE GIVE THANKS?

The month of horror movies is over and it's November, when we give thanks.  Not yet time for the angels to sing, but time to gather for another year of reckoning over turkey and gravy. For what are you thankful?  

This morning, even before rising from bed, gratitude for what entered your sleepy mind first?  The sounds of your children?  The smell of coffee?  That you have lunch planned with a friend?  Or mom is doing better?  Or you are?  For me, daily, it is my husband's arm around me, a last warm embrace before I begin to carefully navigate my unreliable morning back.  

Some, like me, may be thankful that the pain is not today as it was yesterday, when a mere sneeze brought a yelp.  Instead, you may have a new challenge to inspire you. Or be grateful for a friend who did something brave.  Or that Election Day is over.  You may feel appreciated.  That's worth a prayer of thanksgiving.  At the day's close, you might sit outside by the fire pit, as we have been doing, watching the sparks fly and the stars come out, the nights earlier just now.  So many things to be thankful for.  

But what if you have to dig within to give thanks?  What if you're remembering someone lost to you and have only their blessed brief or not-so-brief life to be thankful for?  Worse, what if they just left you, even yesterday or so it seems?  What if the time to be the one you need to be now has not yet passed and you fear it never will and also fear you might forget, and which is worse?  Or what if you're just plain lonely, or sick, and have to dig deeper? 

Sometimes blessings do seem buried, hidden.  Sometimes it is easy to give thanks but sometimes, maybe more often than not, we have to find a way through pain or grief or worry or fear.  We have to scale boulders so high they block our way.  I can't imagine how we do this except through the grace of God.  How else do we survive our tragedies and traumas and losses and illnesses and things that, truly, have no upside?  

Together, of course.  We are never alone.  Lonely, yes, people are.  But not alone.  We have friends.  We have family.  We seek help.  We have those who share our faith.  We have God.  

The most fearful things--not the horror movies we watched over Halloween--but mental, emotional and even physical sufferings, never belong to us alone.  There are times I have wanted more than spiritual blessings.  When an illness strikes, I have prayed for healing, not acceptance.  Or "Dear God, make this not be true."  But God Himself has transformed the prayer into something else.  I have not yet been unable to accept life, and death, as it is.  And you too, is it not so?  

We don't give thanks for losses, or suffering, or meanness.  Sometimes we can't give thanks for anything.  But God takes even just a thought, or tear, takes it all.  God takes our lives and inchoate prayers and makes something of them, something to which He responds giving us strength and grace, endurance and love.  We are children who are known and treasured and beyond all understanding given not what we ask for (perhaps) but what we need.  I don't understand this.  But of all that is difficult to accept, this is not.  

This must be a prayer.  AMEN

"THE STILLER YOU KEEP, THE MORE YOUR SURROUNDINGS EXPAND."

"The stiller you keep, the more your surroundings expand."  This is a quote by Rosey Priestman, who lives by the sea in Scotland.  I ran across it in a magazine I subscribe to, The Simple Things, @Iceberg press.  

I certainly feel like that when we're at the ocean.  All I need do is stand on the shore and everything happens without me doing a thing.  The tide comes in, the tide goes out.  It leaves piles of the smallest shells crushed by their life in the sea. At my feet the shore birds skitter, curved beaks parting the smallest of bivalves as air bubbles recede in the sand. Overhead the gulls screech and just at the waterline pelicans glide or rise and dive.  The stiller I keep, yes, the more life at water's edge expands. 

Have you noticed?  When you're in the right place, you don't feel the urge to go anywhere.  At home we live in a wood and it's the same.  You can look outdoors at any time of day and see the miracle of creation:  towering pines, rugged shaggy bark Hickory trees, squat dogwoods, oaks and red maples.  Branches bare in winter, over-heated in summer and glowing in Fall.  Today leaves floating down, settling about in red and gold. Raking them is a rhythmic delight, the sound, the smell; letting them be, too.

Priestman says, you can drift along doing your thing and nothing particular happens except the sea.  Or, here in the Piedmont, the forests.  North Carolina is a green state.  Our friends from Santa Barbara, California, kept marveling the way we are sheltered by trees everywhere. Overhanging the roadways, nestling the houses, spreading branches in parks and woods and gardens.  And with them, cardinals, finches and woodpeckers; gray and red foxes (we have one each); entertaining squirrels (too many to count); deer and geese and hawks and turkey vultures and ravens.  It feels quite a privilege to pause for the geese in our path or watch the deer bound off gracefully.  

Can't we nurture this feeling wherever we live?  Don't you feel privileged to be where you are, where you choose to be or stay?  I almost don't need to go anywhere else.  I don't have a bucket list.  Granted, I am older, but I have never had a bucket list.  Wait for the sun to rise.  Study the stars.  Watch the night grow longer and the moon head higher each night.  What we do is enough.  What we do is a privilege.  Our lives are a privilege.  

And if times are chaotic for some of the many reasons we can't help, take a break from the worry and stress and keep still for a moment.  The sky hasn't moved.  It won't go away. Breathe and look up.

Let's make everything simpler.  Let's try not to let stuff crowd in on us.  Let's keep our lives as empty as possible.  And in that way, paradoxically, they expand and are full.  

What do you think?                              Nina Naomi

WHAT'S BEST ABOUT FALL

This morning, I looked out the kitchen window and the holly berries had turned pink.  By December they will be a bright red weight on the boughs. The robins are awaiting their winter feast, the way we wait for the Thanksgiving turkey to brown. Yesterday, honestly, they were hard green and nearly invisible amongst the prickly leaves. It happened overnight.

What's best about Fall is that every day it changes.  Take the dogwoods for example.  In Spring they bloom with small yellow flowers encircled by pink or white bracts that look like petals.  Then in summer nothing much happens.  The dogwood stays green and survives the heat.  But now, every day the leaves reach a deeper shade of red.  Soon, the branches will be bare and reveal their deeply grooved bark. 

The nandina too have been turning persimmon with undertones of honeydew. They keep their feathery leaves all year if we escape a freeze, but are pruned by our hungry deer as grasses brown out for winter.  Right now, they are bent with heavy clusters of pale red berries on their cane-like stems. Some need propping up.  They will keep these berries all winter, probably because of the small amounts of cyanide in each orb.  

Last week we couldn't spot the white tails unless they were grazing in the meadow.  But this morning, with less foliage, they were visible meandering from meadow to deep woods past our windows.  Two were nuzzling while they ate the verbena next to the house.  They're growing their dark winter coats.  

And of course, the leaves. We're not making a fall trip.  There's enough going on right here.  And my husband still on crutches, down to one.

The other day I saw the most amazing sight. Not specifically related to the season, I guess, but a box turtle was on its back near my drive as I pulled in.  Nudged up against its side was another box turtle, wedged as it were, trying to help its buddy turn over. We've all seen water turtles piled on a rock together for warmth, but this I hadn't seen--two friends, alone in our meadow, struggling to right the one in trouble.  I got out and turned it over and off they plodded. 

What a season, what a world.  Having passed my big birthday, that I wrote about, I am enjoying everything. Keats called it a "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."  Shorter days and longer nights. Let's love it all.           With love, Nina Naomi  

THE BLESSING OF A BIRTHDAY

October is my birthday month.  This year it is a very big birthday, and I planned a week of events.  A kind of self-care thing while my husband hits the last marks of his recovery from surgery.  

So we went out with another couple. Old friends traveled for a visit. A special group met for lunch instead of knitting.  Women friends from church gathered for brunch.  My oldest grandson came for the weekend.  My granddaughter too. We had breakfast with our niece and her boys who were in town from New Jersey.  And we hosted an evening party for the rest of the family and some close couples' friends. Wonderful friends and family gave me flowers, soaps and other fragrant things.  I blew out candles.  It felt marvelous.   

I have never shopped and organized and straightened and planned so much for myself. It is a super fun thing to do; I recommend it.  Plus, with this approach there's no way to be disappointed because someone forgets your birthday.  You've taken care of that.    

I also recommend the pleasure of growing older.  I know the choice isn't ours, but the welcome we give it is.  What could be luckier than being the age we remember our parents being and finding out that it's not so old after all? What could be better than discovering that growing older is not a misnomer--that we actually do keep growing?  That we grow into all the important aspects of life--resilience, bravery, caring, joy, perspective.  We never stop learning.  Not all of our lessons are wanted, but most are helpful.  I have learned from tragedy what mortality is. No lesson is harder.  I have learned why caring for self is prerequisite to almost any other good thing. 

We learn not to squander anything, not time, or love, or friendship.  We learn what needs protecting and what needs jettisoning. We learn how to accept graciously and how to give freely.   

We learn where our safe places are.  We help others find their safe places.  We learn how to be by ourselves and to value that.  We're not so picky.  We learn how easy it is to wound someone and try not to feel wounded ourselves.  We give and accept second chances. 

We were born to age.  Growing older should never bring sadness.  We mourn for those who don't.  Every birthday brings us closer to eternity.  I am curious about that.  But I am far from the only one. 

The Christian rock band MercyMe wrote and first performed this hit in 1999, and it has been the most played song on Christian radio. The lyrics could not be better.  You might want to listen to it.  Here are the words:

I can only imagine 

What it will be like

When I walk by Your side

I can only imagine

What my eyes would see

When Your face is before me

I can only imagine

Surrounded by Your glory

What will my heart feel?

Will I dance for You Jesus

Or in awe of You be still?

Will I stand in your presence  

Or to my knees will I fall?

Will I sing hallelujah?

Will I be able to speak at all?

I can only imagine

I can only imagine

When that day comes

And I find myself

Standing in the Son

I can only imagine

When all I will do

Is forever, forever worship You

I can only imagine

                          With thankfulness for a long life, Nina Naomi