'Gilmore Girls' inspired me to move to a small town in New England 10 years ago, and I've been living out my Stars Hollow dreams ever since
Lauren Harkawik
- I pined after the small-town life I watched on "Gilmore Girls" while growing up in the suburbs.
- I eventually moved to a small town in Vermont, where I'm now raising my daughters.
I was in high school when "Gilmore Girls" premiered, and I watched it each week from my home in the suburbs. Though I didn't necessarily want to be Rory or Lorelai, I did covet one aspect of their life: Stars Hollow.
From where I was sitting in the suburbs, life in their New England small town — with all its quirks — looked like the perfect place to live. In my mid-20s, I felt drawn enough to this idea that I took the plunge and moved to southern Vermont.
Over a decade later, I've found that small-town life actually is similar to Stars Hollow.
There's a good chance of running into someone you know at the diner in the center of town.
Dot's is our Luke's. On any given day, odds are I'll run into someone I know in the diner.
In 2011, Tropical Storm Irene decimated it (it hovers over a river), and the townspeople were beside themselves. The New York Times even wrote an article about it titled, "In Vermont, a Town That Would Not Let Its Diner Go."
In the article, owner Patty Reagan detailed a story in which regulars once broke in and opened the place up themselves when the owners were late due to an ice storm.
Although the diner belongs to Reagan (her co-owner and husband, John, died in 2017), as The New York Times put it, "everyone, it seems, has a claim."
We have a giant inn in the center of town, too.
It's not quite Lorelai's Dragonfly Inn, but Crafts Inn is an anchor in the center of town.
Its yard is where many of the town's festivals and holiday celebrations happen.
The town gazebo is a go-to place for our annual traditions.
Our town gazebo is in the yard at Crafts Inn, and just like in Stars Hollow, it's a great meetup place.
Among other uses, it's where the announcers sit for the annual Make-A-Wish Duck Race, in which hundreds of rubber duckies are dumped into the river. Throughout the event, people win prizes, including gift certificates to local businesses like the hardware store and the town newspaper.
An old hall acts as a more formal meeting place.
Though we don't use the hall for our annual Town Meeting Day (a day in March where most of Vermont's 237 towns have their own meeting to suss out the year's business), it houses plenty of town events, including lectures and public meetings.
My favorite thing about town meetings is that, like Babette and Miss Patty in Stars Hollow, there are familiar voices here who share impassioned opinions.
Molly Stark, whose statue is holding a baby in one hand and a rifle in another, is part of our town's cast of characters.
Molly Stark was the wife of Revolutionary War General John Stark. Our town rests between where he lived in New Hampshire and where he led a fight against the British at the Battle of Bennington.
At that battle, supposedly, he said that they must win or "Molly Stark sleeps a widow tonight." Our town built the statue in her honor based on that tale.
Our restaurants each have their specialties.
Like "Gilmore Girls," we have a lively menu of restaurants to choose from, and we know what to go to for each.
Jezebel's Eatery is a restaurant that also contains a British market — if you live here, you know you can go there for a killer Reuben and also pick up some British grocery staples.
It's also housed in a historic building downtown that was carried by an ox cart from its former location.
An antique store is a prominent feature of our downtown area.
Our shop isn't run by Mrs. Kim, but antiques play a big role in furnishing people's homes here.
Chapman's Antiques is right in the center of downtown, so it's a prominent fixture of the community.
There's a painted horse that looks like he's sticking his head out of a storage barn.
I'm not sure about the origin of this horse, but I've always thought of him as a character in the town.
If this were Stars Hollow, I suspect Lorelai and Rory would've given him a great name and talked to him whenever they passed by. Or rather, maybe just Lorelai would've befriended him since Rory is afraid of horses.
Our boutiques look like houses from the outside.
On Sunday evenings, most of the businesses downtown are closed. I think all of the decorated porches look like charming houses, and I'm always struck that business owners feel safe leaving some stuff right out on the porch through the night.
Each year here has cycles by way of traditions, celebrations, and scenery.
Berries aren't quite a signifier of small-town life on their own, but I take a picture of them nearly every year because I'm drawn to their color.
That in itself is part of what I love about my town: The annual cycles, traditions, and familiarities I've been able to discover in the tiniest of details.
What you don't see in these pictures is actually the best part of living in a small town: the people.
My neighbors, and the connections I've been lucky enough to share with them, are what truly make my life here so great.
I feel lucky to be one of the characters in my town and to get to know the laughs, voices, passions, and quirks of the other people I live with.
For me, small-town life has been a gift of connections, not just to the place, but to the people in it.
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