What survives the move

I’ve been throwing away memories.

Today it was the silver-plated candle holders, heavily tarnished, engraved with an inscription from my mother’s Israeli cousin: “To Toby From Zahava, 9.4.88.” The date of my wedding.

Zahava was dear to me. While on a teen trip to Israel in 1978, I came down with strep throat. She took care of me, took me to a doctor, let me stay in her Haifa apartment for several days while I fought a pretty high fever. She passed away in the 1990s.

Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

Her wedding gift is now in the trash.

I know.

But I never once used those candle holders, and even forgot I had them. They were tucked away in a cabinet in my dining room, wedged between a ceramic pitcher made by my daughter when she was in elementary school and a bevy of menorahs, coated with wax, some that hadn’t been touched in decades.

The menorahs are being donated. The pitcher is in the trash.

Am I betraying my 12-year-old self by disposing of the scrapbook I put together in seventh grade, containing ticket stubs from King’s Island and Disney World, and a middle school theatrical program? Am I dishonoring my late father by selling his roll-top desk that has sat unused in our basement for years?

As I go through the items I have collected throughout my life, downsizing and preparing for my upcoming move to Stamford, Connecticut — looking forward to living closer to three of our children and grandchildren — I find that I am way more ruthless in getting rid of things than I would have imagined. I am swayed by the logic: If I don’t use these things, if I haven’t even looked at them in years, I certainly can do without them.

Still, the whole process evokes a host of emotions.

A few years ago, the author Anne Patchett wrote a piece for The New Yorker titled “How to Practice,” about her quest to declutter. The article went viral, and resonated with a lot of people, including me.

Patchett chronicled her pursuit of a home filled just with things she needed and used, sorting through the items she had accumulated over a lifetime.

The part of the essay that really got to me was her discovery in a cabinet of a “dozen etched crystal champagne flutes.”

“Had I imagined that, at some point, twelve people would be in my house wanting champagne?” she wrote.

I can relate. I am struck with a similar feeling as I ponder what to do with the china tea set that has been in my breakfront for 32 years.

It was my mother’s set. There is a small teapot, six tiny cups, a sugar bowl and a creamer. I have never used these things.

I recall eagerly bringing these items to my home as a young mother starting out in Pittsburgh’s South Hills in 1993, but I must have envisioned a life not at all like the life that actually transpired. Did I think I was going to throw dainty little tea parties? What was I imagining?

There are other relics of this imaginary life that never materialized. The silver serving pieces. My aunt Alice’s white mink stole. Seriously. Some of these things are easy to dispose of. Others not so much, although it’s hard to make a convincing argument for holding on to them.

Most of the items I am sorting through, though, evidence a life that actually did transpire.

There is a porcelain jar on my dresser, for example, containing dozens of small wads of tissues, each wad holding a decomposing baby tooth. They are the teeth of our four now-adult children.

I have kept this jar of teeth for decades.

But now it is one of those things that will be chucked — along with three boxes filled with my college notebooks and my certificate of admission to practice law in the federal courts of California.

Dara Horn, in an interview about her novel “A Guide for the Perplexed,” said, “Recording everything is the same as recording nothing, because it makes memories meaningless. It’s the act of choosing what’s worth saving that turns a lifetime’s worth of memories into a story.”

After 32 years in Pittsburgh — truly wonderful years — I am curating my life, “choosing what’s worth saving” to tell my story, to my future self and to any descendant who might be interested.

It’s challenging.

And moving, of course, involves more than just leaving material things behind. I am preparing to leave behind Pittsburgh. The skyline that takes my breath away every single time I emerge from the Fort Pitt tunnel. The view from Mount Washington. The Public Theater. The people.

It’s the people that are the hardest to leave behind.

Friends. Colleagues. Neighbors.

You say good-bye and promise to keep in touch. That will be true for some, but it won’t be true for all. And that makes me sad.

I am comforted, though, by knowing that I will continue to be part of Pittsburgh — especially Jewish Pittsburgh — through my work as editor of the Chronicle. Of course I will be working remotely, as our staff has been doing since COVID. I’ll just be working somewhat more remotely, from Stamford rather than Mt. Lebanon.

You will not be seeing me around as much at various events, although I plan to come back for some. But my passion and love for this community remains steadfast, and I am committed to maintaining the quality of this newspaper. Serving this community has been an honor, as well as a big part of my story — and it is one thing that won’t change in the immediate future. I am grateful for that.

Thanks, Pittsburgh. It’s been an amazing three decades. L’hitraot. PJC

Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.