My Wedding Vows to Marja Huhta

NOTE: With a few recent weddings as well as REI’s awesome announcement on marriage equality yesterday, I thought now would be a great time to publish my vows to Marja. I originally wrote and recited these wedding vows to her on Piha Beach in New Zealand on November 17, 2006. I cross-published them to Medium on our 10th anniversary in 2016.

The wedding vows

Jon and Marja at their wedding on Piha Beach in New Zealand.
Photo © Claudia Gaitzsch. View more of our wedding photos.

I’ve learned a new word while we’ve been traveling around New Zealand: tapu. I was told that it’s a Maori word meaning something akin to the Unknown and that the Maori use it when referring to anything new or unexplored; they consider the tapu to be sacred. The tapu evoke a sense of the greater universe and its inner workings; special, unique and mysterious, these attributes should be cherished and conserved, loved and honored.

Marja, I don’t know what the next hundred years will hold – they are tapu. But since we will be together, I have no fear. Just like the curves of Coromandel, they will lead us to new sunrises, new rivers that let out to the ocean, new forests that open up into clearings.

“Though round the corner there may wait
A new road or secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day has come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
(source)

The unknown is beautiful, Marja, and I look forward to sharing it with you.

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Why I’m Leaving SEO

write me a letter...

Dear SEO…

I’ve never written a letter to a concept before. Makes me feel pretty high-falutin’, like Descartes or Foucault or that other guy. But it needs to be done because something’s changed. Me.

Oh SEO… How did it come to this? I’m not the shy, bashful kid you romanced and swept off his feet back in 2001. You wined and dined me with your dedication to content. We grew closer with our mutual affection for data and metrics. I remember how I couldn’t keep my eyes off your perky server logs and luscious spreadsheets. And you got into my pants with your qualified traffic.

I never thought that I was the sort of boy who would sleep with you on our very first date… but I was. Such was my fascination for your ROI. Your mystery and constant evolution drove our torrid passion forward to greater and greater heights. I’d just never felt so… complete and fulfilled.

But after 11 years, the time has come for us to part ways. I’m leaving you, SEO.
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