"You are what you seek," the wise one said.

Once upon a time, some time late in 2011, there were some lonely, kooky, determined math teachers trying to get better.

They searched blogs and joined Twitter in their quests, and eventually they found some like-minded spirits on the internets who were also questing.

In 2012, forty of us decided to meet in person in St. Louis and hold our own conference. Nobody outside that first group (besides Fawn, who hosted #TwitterJealousyCamp) knew or much cared about what we were doing. We were doing it because we wanted to do it. Period.

FUN FACT: Out of forty attendees at the first TMC, I was the one and only attendee from California. In fact, we had more attendees from Mississippi than from California.

It wasn't perfect, but it was real — and that kindled a spark. What made it magical was the fact that people showed up and brought their A game. I learned something amazing from every single person at that conference.

So if you attending TMC for the first time this year, please temper your freaking out with the knowledge that we started this thing because we were looking for YOU. We are STILL looking for you.

Before TMC, I always think of one of my favorite quotes from the great Jungian psychoanalyst and storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

  Even though there are negative aspects to it, the wild psyche can endure exile. It makes us yearn that much more to free our own true nature and causes us to long for a culture that goes with it. Even this yearning, this longing makes a person go on. It makes a [person] go on looking, and if she cannot find the culture that encourages her, then she usually decides to construct it herself. And that is good, for if she builds it, others who have been looking for a long time will mysteriously arrive one day enthusiastically proclaiming that they have been looking for this all along.