A Parking Lot Apple Tree

The story of an unexpected harvest, taking up space, and avoiding Walmart

So, the new neighbourhood we moved to this June is close to a big box shopping complex. It’s only a few blocks away. I’m not a fan of big box, but it’s nice to be able to bike there when we need things, which isn’t often, but a small list had been building up. New underwear, a toilet brush, other unexciting things. This afternoon R and I decided to bite the bullet and head to Walmart, the only store in “scootering” distance that would have everything on the list.

R was not eager. Either was I. Both of us find Walmart overwhelming. There’s too many people, too much stuff, the lighting is intense, and I just generally hate buying things, let alone from a store with such fucking amoral disregard for its employees, its customers, and the world at large. But kids’ underwear and toilet brushes are hard to buy ethically at a reasonable cost and impossible to buy without ordering online, so we braced ourselves for the worst and headed out on bike and scooter.

Half way there, I remembered another store just around the corner in another industrial area that would likely have everything we needed (Lens Mills… IYKYK) It’s kind of a glorified dollar store meets crafter’s paradise. It totally sells cheap junk, but it’s family owned, which makes me feel at least a little better about spending money.

Happy to avoid Walmart, we changed course and found a chain link fence in the parking lot to lock the bike.

Alas, we both looked up from locking the bike, and just on the other side of the fence was one of the most beautiful urban apple trees I’ve ever seen. It was absolutely overloaded with blemish-free apples from trunk to crown. And I mean OVERLOADED. Hundreds, maybe even a thousand apples, all just out of reach.

After admiring the tree for a moment, we wandered across the lot to do our shopping, but I promised R that we would try and get a few when we came back out of the store.

When we did return to the bike, toilet brush and undies in hand, there was an elderly couple who clearly had the same idea. They explained that they were waiting for teenaged grandkids to do some shopping and noticed the tree, hoping to knock a few apples down with a stick.

So we teamed up. R and I found a spot in the fence to slip through, and there was an old wooden pallet that I used as a ladder to boost me up into the tree (exceptionally grateful that this 43-year-old body still enjoys climbing trees). I picked and passed to R, and we managed to fill up the bike basket as well as a bag for them.

As we rode back home, R and I both agreed that it was a much better trip than Walmart.

There are two pieces to this story that stick out to me. The first is that I am so incredibly happy and maybe even a little proud to be a countercultural individual and to do things that seem unusual, like climbing parking lot apple trees. I am grateful to have grown into an adult that a younger version of myself might have thought was pretty cool.

The second is that I really love taking up space as this person—being visible—and encouraging my kids to also take up this kind of space. I love riding my bike in a sea of cars, walking barefoot around my neighbourhood. I love that my kid hangs out in a tree on the boulevard and chats up everyone walking down the sidewalk.

Having left this city as a way to facilitate a desire to “opt out” of the oppressive systems of capitalist culture, I can now recognize how important it is to not just fight against the status quo, but to do so in a way where others can witness alternative ways of living; where we can see each other and learn from each other and work together to find or build alternative options, like foraging apples from a tree in the parking lot.

When the teenagers came out from their shopping and saw us harvesting the apples, they were shocked but excited. They wanted to get involved. One climbed up the tree while we were riding away, giggling and laughing and exclaiming out loud that she was proud of herself for making it up. At the end of the day, it feels like a gift to give each other these shared experiences—not just harvest, but finding, climbing, and sharing together—the adventure of breaking out of the mould of the mindless shopper to do a little bit of the unanticipated and unexpected.