In late April, writer Alex Witchel wrote a compelling piece, “The Return of Ellen Barkin” for The New York Times Magazine. (  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24barkin-t.html ) Presently, Barkin, an actress, is best remembered as the former fourth wife of multi-billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, chairman of Revlon. The six-year marriage, which ended in divorce in 2006, was stormy. The divorce, more turbulent.

Before we suffer tears or hand-wringing over Barkin’s plight, let me add that she’s landed on her feet.  The shoes on those feet were probably Jimmy Choo or Manolo Blahniks’.  Besides the $20 million-or-more settlement, Barkin’s not blabbing, she decided to bid her baubles ‘adieu” at a Christie’s auction.

Now, here’s the Wow factor?  In just six years, Perleman had gifted her with more than 100 trinkets, which she cashed in for another $20 million.  By my calculations, she received about 16 precious pieces of glitz and glitter every year. That’s something-very-special, every three weeks. Who has time to do that much shopping? Let me be frank, Ellen and I run in different social circles.

On her own terms, Barkin, who is 57, is certainly no slouch. By Witchel’s count, pre-Perleman, she’d already made 44 feature films and 7 television movies.  Since the divorce, she’s added another 2 films, a television pilot and, in April, opened on Broadway in “Normal Heart”  for which she’s been nominated for a Tony Award.

While all this is interesting, and, who doesn’t like a little gossip, what facinated me was her answer to Witchel’s inquiry , ‘So these days, when she [Barkin] wakes up at 3 a.m. worrying about something, what is it?’

“I don’t worry about my children, which is a good thing,” she said.  I guess I worry about wierd existential things, like how do we spend our final act? I think, You’re 56 [now, 57] years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do that is as meaningful as that?”

She continued, “I don’t know the answer yet. I guess I’m up thinking, Am I too old to start to absorb new things?”

Here’s when I start to realize that Barkin and I may have something in common. No one has ever asked me, but I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a worry or two also. For my final act, what I call the fourth quarter, I know I want to be cast in the starring role.  Although I’ll never win a Tony, it’s my life and I want to be in control of it.  For a woman flying solo, that requires courage, good health, financial stability, and luck.

In the last two lines of “The Summer Day”, a wonderful poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver, she asks,

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Does our one wild and precious life have to be any less meaningful or productive or fruitful or imaginative now than when we were younger and engaged in the rigors of family and social lives, careers, and other timely pursuits?  While lifestyle adjustments may seem overwhelming and health issues, challenging, can’t we still wring the most out of each day?

Someone who has done that very well is my former Aspen neighbor and long-time friend, Austine. Her life, as I observed it for 18 years, was meaningful, productive and fruitful. Austine, always active in the community, was happily on-the-run.  Unfortunately, her husband, also a doctor, suffered from Alzheimer’s, and died four years ago.  She was his caregiver the last nine years of his life. Recently I asked her about her new life as a single woman, a widow.

“So how do I cope with being alone?”, she wrote, in an e-mail.  “The truth is I love being alone in my own home. I cook only if there is a quorum (2 or more).  I realized just how much time it takes to cook, what with planning, shopping, preparation, eating, cleaning up, and I decided  it wasn’t worth the time and effort.

I play lots of bridge, take walks, and read.  I don’t seek out new friends but am open to them. I have traveled a good bit with a long-time friend from New York. I am in that sweet spot right now after not being able to go because I couldn’t leave my husband alone and before the physical decline sets in [for me].  I am making progress on my Bucket List. I don’t enjoy traveling or going to restaurants alone, so I don’t.  I have not yet had to ask “Why do I bother?”. If I have a block of time, I have only to refer to My List, never mind those back-burner projects.  I am able to spend time with my daughters and grandchildren now.

I do miss being part of a couple.  I get twingey when I see a couple in a restaurant at a table for two, sharing a meal, looking as though they belong together.  I miss my husband’s mind, human contact.

Am I happy?  I am not unhappy.  I am content.  I am not sure what the next chapter is, but I am up for it.”

This is, it seems to me, what flying solo is all about, a time to imagine our possibilities, welcome our choices, and celebrate our differences. Like Austine, I’m a home-hugger, my safe place to hunker down, especially when times are rotten. Unlike her, I add cooking to the many hobbies and pastimes we both enjoy. Traveling alone? I like it.  Another real treat, for me, is a nice restaurant for lunch. If need be, I’ll dine alone. And, while, like Austine, I’ve never met “bored”, I do admit to sometimes wondering, “Why do I bother?”  I also rejoice in my family but miss the couple-dom, especially the male/female repartee.  As a former business journalist at a time when the majority of my subjects, sources and sidekicks, were men, I like mixing it up with smart men.  Because I’m in a different place emotionally, remaining a caretaker, I’m still peddling towards contentment, still trying to find my path.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.”

Eleanor Roosevelt