Neighborhood author is “Creating Time”

Writer in residence: Marney K. Makridakis

“Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life” by neighborhood author Marney K. Makridakis.

Albert Einstein proved scientifically that time is relative. We see it anecdotally in our everyday lives, Marney K. Makridakis says. “We all know 30 minutes spent talking to a good friend goes by faster than 30 minutes in a boring business meeting, right?” Like the iconic genius, Makridakis has spent years studying time and teaching people how to change their perception of it. “Time is the pervasive challenge today. Our conversations revolve around time — not enough time, time goes too fast — and so many books have been written about time management. That can be effective to a point, but all these teachers view time as merely chronological. Time is an emotional, psychological and neurological experience, more than just minutes and hours.” She learned from such books how to juggle her online business, mother an infant, deal with pressing health issues and loads more, but only at the expense of her happiness. “I was never fully present in anything I was doing,” she says. During a moment of solace on a beach, she thought to herself, “Since it is so hard to manage or save time, why not try to create it?” Via experimentation with imagination, viewing and experiencing in new ways, she learned that we have more control over our perception of time than we think we do and that we can partner with time rather than fight it. She created an online course to help others discover the same. She grew in popularity as a speaker, workshop leader and publisher of the site artellaland.com. Just recently she penned “Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life.” Makridakis studied theater at Dallas Arts Magnet before moving to New York and later Hawaii and is now living in Lake Highlands, touring the country, promoting her book and lecturing on the time topic. She moved back to our neighborhood four years ago after her son Kai was born with a bone disorder. Conveniently located Scottish Rite Hospital and Dallas Children’s Medical have some of the best treatment available, she says. She lives close to her mom, Arthiss Kliever, who is something of a neighborhood celebrity as the operator of Launa’s Little Library. (Most know her as Mrs. K.) Makridakis’s dad, Dr. Lonnie Klieve, who died a few years ago, was the SMU faculty representative on the athletic committee during the SMU death penalty scandal of the 1980s. She dedicated the book, in part, to him, “in loving memory of the sacred past.”