Stars Hollow, Season 1

There are certain things you can count on in Stars Hollow. Like the fact that if you so much as sneeze in Doose’s Market, Miss Patty will know about it before you even step outside. Or that Luke will always act annoyed when you ask for extra whipped cream but will still give it to you anyway. Or that my mom will, without fail, find a way to turn a simple coffee run into a dramatic retelling of her teenage rebellion.

It’s a small town, but not the kind that makes you want to escape. It’s more like a warm, slightly eccentric blanket woven together with town meetings, festivals, and an alarming number of people who feel entitled to an opinion on my life. Case in point: I can’t walk two blocks without someone asking about Chilton. Am I overwhelmed? Is the uniform itchy? Have I met any handsome future Ivy League husbands yet? (That last one was Babette. She winked.)

I get it. I’m the girl who’s supposed to make it out of Stars Hollow—not that I want to escape, but because, apparently, I’m predestined for Harvard. Or Yale. Or Princeton. The holy trinity of higher education. And I do want it. I love this town, but I also love the idea of ivy-covered libraries, of sitting in some prestigious lecture hall scribbling notes while a brilliant professor unpacks the mysteries of 19th-century literature.

But for now, I’m here. In a town where my best friend is my mom, where town meetings double as stand-up comedy, and where a cup of coffee at Luke’s is practically a daily sacrament. It’s chaotic, quirky, and sometimes exhausting—but it’s home.