Sleeping fast

May 1955: my grandfather, Uncle Ed, Aunt Faye and my grandmother pose together during Ed & Faye’s wedding at my grandparent’s home in New Jersey.
I hardly knew my Aunt Faye; I’m not even sure how she was related to me. My mother’s mother’s sister-in-law? A daughter of my grandmother’s bevy of older sisters? I really cannot say. My sister keeps track; she knows all of the distant cousins. I’m hopeless when it comes to family connections.
Anyway, Aunt Faye was a character. She was a zaftig woman, funny, loud, and brash. I never saw her without her “face” on–cakey foundation, high arches of pencilled eyebrow, a sky’s worth of blue shadow. Her hair was platinum cotton candy. And she loved butterfly designs in jewelry and clothing. To put it a bit unkindly, the campiest drag queen would have admired of her style.
Yesterday I was thinking of her, remembering how she used to say she could “sleep fast.” Meaning she would stay up late (carousing, I presume) and get up early, ready for a new day. I don’t know how she did it, but I think I may have the same skill.
Really, I seem to do everything fast. Sleep, work, walk, talk, think. I’m living my life at 78 rpm. I wonder if that means I’ll get everything done early and die young. Or maybe I’ll just end up doing more than everyone else. Or perhaps I will slow down.
My experiences with Aunt Faye were confined to my childhood–intersections of our visits to my grandparents’ house. I don’t remember seeing her beyond the time I was ten, though she lived another 20 years or more past that so I’m sure I must have.
I wonder what Aunt Faye did with all of her extra time?