SOL 30-day Challenge, 2025

Day 31

Introducing the Slice of Life, 30-day Writing Challenge, 2025. The 30-day challenge follows the same format and submission guidelines as the 31-day challenge, but ends one day earlier. Writers enter the challenge with a mental playbook divided into equal thirds, 10 days each.

The precedent of a 30-day challenge is well-established. There is the 30-day fitness challenge, the 30-day leadership challenge, the 30-day embroidery challenge, and the 30-day vegan challenge, so why not the 30-day Slice of Life challenge?

Thirty days demonstrates grit and determination. Thirty days leaves the participant satisfied. Habits changed-check!

Adding that one extra day feels like a step too far, the last straw, a breaking point (insert your own cliche here).

Day 31 is a wobbly loose tooth, a straggler, an afterthought. I’ve written through my territories, covering old favorites like birds, trees, and aging and explored new ones, New York City and museums. On day 31, only the dregs remain: thundershirts, four generation pictures (which I believe I’ve already written about in a prior challenge), placing spoons on spoon rests. Come on, don’t make me write about spoon rests.

I’m going to follow the advice from today’s featured poem, “Unburdening,” and unburden myself from #31 of 31.

Epitaph, 3-31-24: She almost made it over the finish line but it was a bridge too far.

Bracket Play

Day 30

Sixty-four seconds

remain in the tied game,

1:04 seconds to turn

a certain defeat into

an historic 32-point,

come-from-behind

win.

The two teams continue

trading points.

Two-point jump shots

are answered with

power lay-ups.

The game clock

ticks down slowly.

Both teams locked in-

single game elimination

makes victory sweet.

Sixteen brings it down the court

and hits his teammate

cutting to the basket.

The forward skies and scores.

The crowd goes crazy,

chants his nickname:

Elite, Elite, Elite!

Eight seconds remain.

A time-out is called.

The opposing team

inbounds at half court.

Their star guard drives

around a high pick,

opening a lane

to the basket.

In the final four seconds,

he releases a fingertip layup;

the kind he has made countless

times before,

but the ball circles around the rim

and spins out.

The cinderella team advances,

final score: 69-67.

North Carolina State men’s basketball team

The NCAA tournament begins with 64 division one college teams in mid-March. The single elimination tournaments works through two rounds each week: 64, 32, Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four, and the Final. One bad game can send a good team home in a surprising defeat; conversely, teams who haven’t had a winning regular season can go on a winning streak and take down top seeded teams. That is where the “March Madness” originated. North Carolina State men’s team is the the cinderella story this year. They have been a blast to watch.

The poem represents a fictionalized version of the type of games I’ve watched play out, where teams have come back from huge deficits to either win or bring it to within a few points during the final minutes of the game. So much so that my husband asked if we could just skip ahead to the last five minutes of the Duke-Houston game last night. That’s when the game gets good.

The Quiet Car

Day 29

I like to talk. I also like to hear other people talk. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate silent time to read and write, but otherwise I enjoy people sounds, especially conversations. So imagine my disappointment when we boarded our Amtrack train last weekend, and my husband revealed that we were booked in the quiet car.

He meant well. He is not a talker.

My husband enjoys the quiet, and he assumed I would too. I am a teacher after all, and teachers value peace and quiet. Loud voices can be interruptive and imposing. I get it.

Thankfully, a couple of seat mates, long lost friends, recognized each other shortly after departing from the station. Their excitement over reconnecting got the better of them, and their voices rose well above a whisper. The men were young and full of life. Their stories were going to carry me into New York City.

Excuse me. You are in the quiet car, so if you are going to talk, you will need to find another train car, scolded a woman sitting behind the two friends.

For a brief moment I considered following them into the connecting car, but thought better of it. Leaving my husband for two strangers wasn’t the best move to make at the start of our vacation.

Three hours of silence is heaven for some, but a test for me: a challenge meant to be endured, not appreciated. Since motion sickness prevents me from reading and writing, I resolved to sit in my seat and watch the world rush by in silence.

On Cloud 9

Day 28

White hash marks

stretch out

like piano keys

down the center

of the highway.

Winter’s concrete confinement

turned spring’s porte-cochères—

a drive-thru of

fresh green trellises

and blooming Bradford

pear trees, their

fancy headgear

signals a rite of passage.

My overnight bag is

heaped on the floor.

I’m braless

and carefree.

No lists to check

or meetings to make.

Even the wasp, who has snuck

in through the car’s window,

is chill, sunning on the dashboard

without a primary-

care in the world.

I needed a lot of support for today’s SOL so I wrote a found poem based off the following prompt. (I can’t remember the exact site I pulled the prompt from.)

Prompt: Write a poem using all the words below and include the two choice requirements.

Words: braless, primary-care, cloud, porte-cochères, confinement, trellises, headgear, heaped, wasps, bradford, drive-thru

Include a musical instrument (piano)
List one unusual habit (going braless-a bit of a double-dip)

The Rose Reading Room

Day 27

Last Sunday, we planned to visit the New York City Public Library-the main branch-but it was closed which surprised me since most public libraries maintain Sunday hours. I was hoping to tour the library with my daughter and encourage her to get her first NYC library card.

Libraries are my jam. They are my community. No matter who you are or how much money you make, you are welcome. You have access.

My husband and I returned to the NYC Public Library on Tuesday, and to my surprise, the library felt more like a high security government building than a place to read, research and write. I hadn’t realized the library building was such a tourist attraction, and for that reason, most people were viewed more as disruptors than patrons. I definitely didn’t feel welcome. Tour groups and visitors milled about, taking pictures of the grand architecture and design. I wanted to find a quiet space to write, to be surrounded by books.

Eventually my husband and I found the third floor Rose Reading Room which did allow visitors to enter if they committed to quiet work. The room gave off a Hogwarts library vibe–all wood and marble with long tables interspersed with library desk lamps. The formality of the room combined with a strict silence policy was not welcoming nor the type of atmosphere that spurred a sense of creativity. I worried I’d get kicked out for coughing or clicking my keyboard too loudly.

It took a few deep breaths for my body to relax, feel comfortable enough to write. Eventually, the words began flowing.

The museum-like appeal of the NYC Public Library, main branch, is worth a tour. However, if you are looking for a welcoming community space to read, research or write, might I suggest visiting one of New York City’s neighborhood branches instead.

(I continued to write slices #23-26 in my Notes app while vacationing in NYC. While I missed the official SOL blog posting deadlines, it was important to me to meet my 31 day writing goal, so I copied and pasted my slices into my personal blog today.)

Day 23: My Neighbor Brings Me Cupcakes

Day 24: Impressionism

Day 25: A Visit to MoMA, NYC

Day 26: What If

What If

Day 26

A few weeks ago, a woman’s boyfriend pushed her in front of an oncoming subway train in New York City. She survived but her feet were amputated in the accident. The image of the woman being shoved in front of an oncoming subway train played in my head as I waited with my daughter and husband for the number four train in Manhattan yesterday. I played the What if game of survival — picturing what I would do if I was ever shoved in front of an oncoming train. Would I plaster myself against the stone wall? Lay flat below the line of tracks?

Eventually our train arrived and interrupted my morbid mental exercise. We boarded, en route to the Brooklyn Bridge for an evening walk at sunset.

The thing about What ifs is that they sprout from real events. And sometimes possibilities come dangerously close to reality. We took the six train home from the bridge that night because the four never made it to our station. Apparently, at about the same time I was contemplating how to survive falling onto the tracks, a man pushed another man in front of the number four train at the East Harlem station. A random act of violence ending in an innocent man’s death occurred just 110 blocks north of the exact line we had been standing on.

A Visit to MoMA, NYC

Day 25

Picasso

Rothko

Wyeth

Warhol

van Gogh

Kandinsky

Gauguin

Cezanne

Matisse

Diego

Hopper

Pollock

Dali

Sometimes the sheer preponderance of a singular viewpoint in a field lands like a gut punch.

I’m not sure you can call art* modern when traditions of who is elevated are upheld.

Classic.

MoMA: Men only Make Art

*referencing the early period, 1890-1940

Impressionism

Day 24

The storm and train

track parallel lines,

DC to NYC.

All aboard the quiet car.

Graffiti rises,

overflowing concrete banks.

Fast moving creeks cut

circuitous paths

like snakes racing through

grasslands.

Juxtaposing views of

urban decay and

wetlands.

My Neighbor Brings Me Cupcakes

Day 23

My neighbor brings me cupcakes,

the fancy kind in a pink box.

She’s got a guy on the inside-

pays half price for a dozen.

Before the cupcakes

there were soft pretzels.

Lots and lots of

greasy blue bags

filled with original styles,

cinnamon twists and

pastry covered dogs.

She said she had a guy

who cut her a deal.

I never had the heart to say,

No thank you,

too afraid she’d see it as

a rejection of her friendship.

Eventually, the pretzels stopped coming,

and so did my neighbor.

Many weeks passed before

she showed up at my door

empty handed and apologetic.

There’d be no more pretzels.

Her guy had been fired.

Peter & Ivy

Day 22

If I were to start a business

I’d call it Peter and Ivy.

A charming name with

a dash of vintage

and a dose of grace.

I’d skip the business plan;

pass on a market analysis.

I’d flip the script and

let the name inspire the concept:

Peter & Ivy, children’s apparel

Peter & Ivy, French bistro

Peter & Ivy, vintage inspired housewares & textiles

Peter & Ivy, plant nursery.

A quick Google search

confirms the name is unclaimed.

That leaves one last hurdle to clear–

approval from the two namesakes

who have their own entrepreneurial ideas.

Peter and Ivy, organic pet treats

Co-founders

Peter & Ivy

Ivy is our 12-year-old, mixed-breed, rescue dog, and Peter is our backyard bunny and friend to Ivy.