We’re most of the way through our sixth or seventh or maybe eighth viewing of the entire Gilmore Girls series, and I find myself affected by a peculiar kind of nostalgia.
It’s a longing for a simpler time, when things were less messy. Less racist. Less Trump.
Watching this show, I can envision the perfect place. It’s clean, friendly, an ideal combination of small town charm and big city mores.
Okay, so Stars Hollow is a little white. Maybe a lot white. But there’s something about it that calls to me, that imagines America as it could be if we could bridge the divide between right and left. It’s a place where everybody knows their neighbors and looks out for one another, but where differences are welcomed and celebrated.
In another week and a half, we will inaugurate a man who lied his way into the presidency. He won because he convinced a majority of the people who voted, in just the right states, to vote for him, and in the process, he destroyed what was left of the ideas of facts, truth, and political shame in our political system.
So this longing for a world where we all get along and accept each other for who and what we are is understandable, as we head into a new political era of divisiveness, lies, and hatred.
A Stars Hollow state of mind doesn’t just happen, though. We’ve all been wrapped up in our own little bubbles of late, enabled by social media which reflects our own world views back at us like a funhouse mirror. If we are to have any chance of healing this country and moving forward, we have to start popping those bubbles.
As a writer, I can do my part by writing about people who aren’t like me, who maybe don’t share my values, but who have their own thoughts and prayers and motivations and reasons. It doesn’t mean I have to excuse racism or homophobia, but maybe I can be one less voice advocating division and hatred.
And maybe I can make my own life a little more Stars Hollowish, by getting out there and doing what I can to look out for my friends and neighbors.
It’s going to be a long four years. We need to do what we can to put things back together now. I’ll meet you at Luke’s Diner.