Her troll collection is slowly replacing the gnomes; the gnomes first displaced the fairies. When I first met Carri Andersen she was herself a fairy princess with long ringlet hair, flowing skirts, perfect skin and probably wings. Just 19 years old then she worked at my daughter's pre-school on Queen Anne. Trained in classical ballet she was the Sugar Plum Fairy but in layers of clothing.

My daughter was at Northwest Center for Child Development for five years; so was Carri. My daughter "graduated" to kindergarten and Small Faces and I lost track of her longtime teacher and sometime babysitter for 11 years. Then last winter I spotted Carri at a Save Mannings/Denny's meeting at Abraxus Books. Her clothes were more fitted, hair not as flowing. I worried that the free spirited flower child I'd known had shed her magic wings. I shouldn't have worried. Carri now flies officially as an aerialist.

I always knew that Carri had strong connections to Ballard. Her grandfather was a Danish Merchant Marine who jumped ship in America - Ballard was his entry point. He married Henrietta, a Dane by way of Iowa, and they raised their family at NW 77th and Jones. He became a naturalized citizen just days before shipping out for World War II. After the war he worked as a fisherman and in canneries. He passed his love for the water onto future generations; Carri and her older brother have always needed to be near water.

Suddenly I started seeing Carri all over Ballard - a Sustainable Ballard meeting, walking with a little girl on Market Street, the new Groundswell Park by the Locks and the rummage sale at the Ballard Senior Center. Eleven years without one sighting and suddenly Carri was everywhere. It was clearly time to summon her to Nervous Nellies for a chat to learn about the missing years.

For the years before we met in Room 2 dance was Carri's "life." By age 18 she was having knee problems and in too much physical pain to continue ballet. After five years at the pre-school she began taking classes at North Seattle Community College and considered becoming a midwife. "I was not a natural for physiology," she admits. She transferred to the University of Washington, studied Danish and spent a summer at the University of Copenhagen before graduating with a double major in Scandinavian Studies (just one of four) and Women's Studies. Scandinavian literature led her to admitted passion for troll lore, even if trolls are Norwegian instead of Danish.

Carri has always been drawn to pageantry and spends July at the Oregon Country Fair outside of Eugene every year. In Seattle she began volunteering for Cirque de Flamb/ and was interested in learning fire dancing. This led her to meet Lara Paxton of Circus Contraption who was teaching some fire and aerial. Carri says of trapeze, which is essentially ballet in the air, "it's just exciting. It reminds you that you're living." Plus there's no jumping to injure her knees.

The Aerialistas are a troupe of women trapeze artists founded in 2004. They practice in Fremont, rehearsing several times per work during the winter season. Carri does mostly doubles work; what she describes in a specialized vocabulary as three hoops, two girls and peacock routines with silks. "Aerial has translated into my life in so many ways. It's kind of a risk but you have to move forward. And you have to hope the rope will catch you," Carri said knocking wood. "So far it has."

The group always performs at the Moisture Festival in Fremont and the Seattle Center's Winter Festival. They also perform at private parties such as fundraising auctions. The work isn't steady, so Carri has always done childcare as well; nanny for triplets while in school, five years now with a little girl on Phinney Ridge.

The more often that I see Carri in Ballard the more that she comes to look like her younger self to me. Her hair is back in hundreds of ringlets and she swoops to meet me on her bicycle. Her blue eyes truly spark as she tells me, "If you need troll lore. I'm your person." She has a dream of one day leading tours in Ballard, combining ghost stories with troll, historical places with those that have meaning for her as a third generation Ballardite. She wants to get as involved as possible with the community, "I feel it's my responsibility because my ethnic heritage stems from Ballard." She worries that Ballard is no longer a place where anyone can afford to live, "but if I can be involved in creating positives then I can be okay with change." She's spearheading landscaping changes to bring in more drought tolerant plants as president of her condo board and organizing their community garage sale for SeafoodFest weekend.

Danish flags fly from the balcony; the growing troll collection is on her family history shelf next to old photographs from the Jones Avenue house. She has traded wings that she actually wore on special occasions at the daycare center for the silks from which she suspends herself, but she still glitters. Carri's connection to Ballard goes back to when her grandfather jumped ship in 1924, but she's also part of future connections, combining troll lore with sustainability, risk taking with confidence in the rope that holds together past and present.

Peggy Sturdivant writes a series on neighborhoods for CrossCut.com and also writes additional pieces for the Seattle PI's Neighborhood Webtown: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard/ Her email is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com