Howard Rossman

The story, as I recall it, is that my father proposed to my mother only after he saw that she could dance.  And dance she could.  It wasn’t a long courtship, in fact it was only a matter of weeks between the blind date, that first dance, and the wedding.   They hardly knew each other and I’m certain that the smoothness of their feet belied the friction of their early marriage.  Yet as a child, I remember music often played in our living room, and we would watch our parents dance.  Joyfully, playfully, lovingly.  They taught us to dance too – certainly not the dances of our youth – but jitterbug, cha-cha – dances of their youth.  Dances of their courtship.  Dances where two became one.

Somewhere along the way the piece pictured here found its way into our parents’ living room.  I have no idea where it came from, and no one to ask when it arrived.  From one perspective, it’s simply a tchotchke (a Yiddish term, loosely translated as something no-one thought they wanted and no-one can ever get rid of).  But when it came time to sell their home and distribute the stuff of a lifetime, I knew I wanted this. 

It sits now on the corner of my desk.  It is not a thing of my youth – not, itself, a cherished object.  Simply, two figures inextricably entwined, moving together to a silent song, reminding me of the way my parents will always dance in my heart.