AUBURN – In 2000, Michael Hayashida, today a Poland Regional High School teacher, was working as a dissatisfied telecommunications engineer in Chicago.

And he was in a relationship he was doubting.

But services he attended at the Unitarian church were becoming more important.

He quit his job and enrolled in the seminary.

Michael’s life was about to change further when he met his future wife, Jodi, today the minister at the First Universalist Church in Auburn.

With their talkative 2-year-old playing in their living room – soon to be joined by a baby sister – Michael recently recalled the first time he saw her.

He was walking up some stairs at the seminary.

She was refinishing a piece of furniture.

“She was good looking,” he recalled with enthusiasm. “She had on this blue bandanna to keep her hair out of the Old English. … She was like, wow!”

They became friends.

He broke up with his girlfriend.

Hoping to get a date with Jodi, he arranged to house sit where she lived. He knew Jodi would be returning home. His plan worked. They went out for dinner.

Returning from dinner, he parked his car illegally thinking he’d only need a few seconds to retrieve his belongings. But, he didn’t get back to his car that quickly.

“I wanted to kiss her, bad,” Michael said. “We kissed. It was sparkling and amazing.”

She noticed out the window a tow truck about to haul off a car. “I said, ‘Michael, isn’t that your car?'”

He sprinted out trying to convince the driver not to take his car so he wouldn’t face a $120 fine. “Too late,” the driver said.

They took her car to retrieve his.

On the way, the conversation was almost as magical as the kiss, he recalled. Discussing a theology paper, “there was just a great connection,” he said. “It was so nice to have someone interested in that stuff, to be understood.” The kiss and the conversation were “worth the $120,” he said.

Jodi recalled another night early in their relationship when she and Michael went for a walk by Lake Michigan.

“It was late February, but warm enough to wear a short-sleeved dress.” There was a little wind and fog. A big moon hung overhead. “It was like out of the movies,” she said.

Sitting by the lake, “I was able to talk to him in a way I was never able to talk to anyone I’d been in a relationship with. It was one of those nights that don’t actually happen in real life, but it did.”

But how could the relationship work, her roommate asked. Jodi was ending her fourth year at the seminary, about to accept a position in Maine. Michael was starting his first year.

They planned to have a long-distance relationship. That didn’t last. He quit the seminary, moved to Maine, and ended up teaching. They married in October 2002.

These days, like many families, their lives are full, and about to get fuller when their second child arrives.

As a minister, she’s on call 24 hours a day. She often works nights attending meetings or ministering. He finds high school teaching rewarding, but it can be consuming. Michael also plays in a folk band.

There’s not as much together-time as they’d like.

But, “we make a good team,” he said. When she’s lost energy, he takes off with little Kaia allowing her some time. When he comes through the door in need of a nap, she gives him that time.

It’s nice raising a family “with someone who’s an unselfish teammate,” he said.

She agreed.

The intimacy and romance of a couple is nice, but being a family is “also amazing and wonderful and fun. I’m OK with us being a family for a while, knowing when we get older we’ll be able to …”

He finished her sentence.

“Walk by the lake again in the February thaw.”

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