There are no Dial of Destiny spoilers in this post!
We all have those movies that are so beloved to us that they become formative memories, shaping our earliest ideas of who we are. Like millions of other Gen Xers, I grew up watching the original Indiana Jones movies over and over until they felt imprinted on my soul. I remember being a kid running across the suspension bridges at the annual summer carnival, pretending I was Indy in Temple of Doom, or making booby traps out of couch cushions to reenact the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. When your little corner of the world ended at the block you were allowed to pedal your bicycle to and back, life could feel so small. Movies opened up a universe of far-flung destinations to explore and hidden clues leading to crypts filled with treasure. Fortune and glory, kid.
No tepid review or abbreviated Cannes standing ovation could deter me from seeing Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on its opening weekend, the fifth installment in the series and Harrison Ford’s final turn in the iconic lead role. It was a movie I wanted so badly to love that I could will myself into it no matter what. On Friday night, I settled into my reclined theater seat with my popcorn and lost myself in the world of my childhood for two and a half hours. There are tons of elements in Dial of Destiny that will scratch the nostalgic itch: chase scenes in improbable vehicles, rotting skeleton jump scares, a well-placed Wilhelm scream, creepy bugs, the swelling strings of John Williams’ score, and Nazis getting punched in the face. But there was a particular throwaway line that resonated with me deeply.
Harrison Ford is now eighty years old. In a scene in which Indy struggles to climb up a rock wall, his goddaughter Helena (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) asks him why he’s stopping to rest. Indy retorts “I’m twice your age! I’ve drunk the blood of Kali! I’ve been tortured with voodoo!”
While the slowing down of our bodies due to aging is a universal experience, the ways we get there can be wildly all over the place.
Out of nowhere, starting a few weeks ago, I’ve woken up in the morning with pain radiating through my right hip. I carefully ease myself upright and swivel my legs off the edge of a bed like a robot approximating human movement. The pain started the day after a routine workout—a long cardio session on the elliptical machine and some light weightlifting—and I assumed I might have overdone it on the deadlifts. But a week later, the pain not only still lingered but expanded in a specific, acute way, throbbing in my hip crease. I scheduled an appointment with an orthopedic doctor, got X-rayed, and was told to schedule an MRI so we can get a look at the status of my hip cartilage, but the soonest appointment was nearly two weeks out. As I wait for the day of my MRI, I’m in the thick of the unknowing part of it all—without a diagnosis, with no plan of treatment in place besides rest, ice, and ibuprofen.
I’m listening to my body (Shakira taught me that hips don’t lie). It’s telling me that, like Indy’s famous line in Raiders, it’s not the years but the mileage. I’ve been running (literally and metaphorically) for decades, letting my restless streak dictate a schedule overpacked with activity. The subtitle of this newsletter says it all: outdoor travel for people who can’t stay still.
I spent my twenties and early thirties being reckless about the limitations of my body. If I could get through a shift at work on three hours of sleep with a raging hangover, I could power my way through pretty much anything, right? At 28, I joined a roller derby league. For the three years I skated with the team, I was a kamikaze player, hurling my body into the opposing team’s blockers or jammer without much control or strategy. I didn’t get much playtime during games, but I was excellent at winning the after-party, which if we’re being honest, is the sport I’d trained for most of my adult life. I challenged league-mates to arm wrestling matches or push-up contests on a dirty bar floor.
I retired from derby after injuring my knee, but once I fully recovered from a Carticel knee cartilage implantation (a surgery that landed me in an immobilizer brace for six weeks and on crutches for four months), I refocused my appetite for wilding out toward outdoor adventure: tent-camping in blizzards, backpacking through grizzly country, hiking into canyons and up mountains. When I’m outdoors, I feel the most alive—I feel the most like me.
Since my early twenties through today, I have: broken my nose (ran too fast into a door), been hit by a car on my bike, hit a car on my bike, been hit by a car while crossing the street, separated my shoulder (bodyslam), cracked my tailbone (roller derby), cracked my ribs (derby again), and torn the cartilage in my knee (repaired with two procedures). I once attempted a knee slide across a bar room floor to “Wrecking Ball” and my knee popped with every step for three straight days; karaoke-induced injuries are my blood of Kali.
My list is nothing, however, compared to the extensive amount of damage Harrison Ford has sustained while filming the Indiana Jones movies. In a recent interview with Esquire, Ford was asked about being known for doing many of his own action scenes, and he replied “Yeah, well, I’m also known for shutting movies down because I get hurt, which is not something you want to be known for. But hey, shit happens.” There has been a moment during each of my injuries when time both speeds up and slows down, where I see what’s about to happen and the inevitable pain following impact. The moment of sailing over your handlebars and seeing the pavement rush up at you.
As I wait for the date of my MRI, the only way I can avoid aggravating my hip is to not move. I have gone from working out five days a week to sitting immobile on my couch holding an ice pack to my aching hip. I’m terrible at resting, I’m impatient and I just want to be moving again already. With all of this time on my hands it’s way too easy to spiral deep into a Mariana Trench of WebMd-induced anxiety, and all of my big summer plans feel locked in a holding pattern, awaiting further info. I see a panicked glimpse of a future that looks like a lot of my past: ice packs, cortisone shots, the elastic straps and Bosu balls of twice-weekly physical therapy, googling various treatment options and “recovery how long?”
It’s hard not to feel betrayed by my body, which had so recently hiked up a 2,000 ft-tall active volcano in South America, and now surges with pain if I try to pick up a sock off the floor. As I rest and stew, extremely jealous of everyone else walking around with their hip cartilage intact, I wonder if I burned myself out too fast. I anticipated joint pains down the road, but at 44, did I make myself old before my time? Did I not pace this out right??
So once again, I turn to my childhood hero, Indiana Jones. Googling the many injuries that Harrison Ford sustained on set has become an odd comfort to me; even the hero of my youth has a body that breaks down. Rest and recovery are a bitch, but I can look at it like the Leap of Faith at the end of The Last Crusade. We don’t know what our futures hold. All we can do is put one foot out over the chasm ahead, take that big step, and have faith that we’ll get across.
I love this so much! And this is exactly why I want to start a storytelling show that's about pop culture, like this is exactly it!
I read this as I have to turn my entire torso to move my neck in a specific direction because I slept on a couch for 4 nights. I slept on a flattened futon mattress for 3 semesters of college and nary an ache or pain.
Fingers crossed for a negative MRI 🤞🏻