Grace from a monk's hood

I had a crummy day at work. So I parked my truck at the south side of Hartley Park in Duluth, Minnesota, and walked up to the jersey barriers that mark the entrance to the trails. I thought a run would burn the carbon out.

An old man sat on one of the pieces of concrete, hunched over and looking at something in his hand. I thought he needed help. As I got closer, he stood up and walked toward me. He had a friendly, fit face, a baseball cap and a hearing aid in each ear. His voice was clear when he asked, "Are you a wildflower guy?"

I was caught off guard and said, "I can be, I guess."

"This is monkshood," he said, showing me the cluster of blue and white flowers he held in his hand. "I've been watching a patch for about four years and it's doing really well now."

"Well, that's something," I said. "Take care." I then turned to run into the trees. I'd never seen monkshood before, and I've spent a lot of my life outdoors.

There were no other cars at the end of the trail. That man was by himself and maybe he would've walked home alone - the sole viewer of those plants, as far as he knew. He took the time to reach out to a stranger and show him some flowers. I wondered if his age gave him a finer appreciation for beauty or he thought things were better when shared.

I thought of the time I drove from Alaska to Alabama when I had a month off in my 20s. I soaked in the Liard River Hot Springs in Canada. Rode my mountain bike above Jasper. Downhill skied at Lake Louise. Saw hanging glaciers near Banff. Learned what a "loony" was. Backpacked into Glacier National Park. Saw my first black bear. Caught some more spring skiing on the west side of the Grand Teton. Got a speeding ticket in Oklahoma. But, mostly, I remember being alone. It was an awesome month, but I didn't have somebody to share it with.

He's on to something, I thought.

About a week later, I figured I'd go for a new dose of Hartley Park trail running to purge another bad day. After 15 minutes of running and an incident with an unleashed "good" dog, I was truly toxic. I dialed up the pace to try to escape myself and pounded down the trail: overweight, middle-aged and pissed.

There was a flash of blue and white. I stopped and smiled like a big dope at the patch of monkshood. I was suddenly and involuntarily happy.

Son of a gun, I thought. I'm a wildflower guy.

Eric Chandler is a husband and father of two in Duluth, Minnesota. When he isn't training for the Birkie or Grandma's Marathon, he fliers airplanes. Contact him at fourchandlers@msn.com