Sunday was different. After working for weeks to build support for Wayne Kublalsingh's hunger strike, Sunday's gathering was the first sign of popular momentum.
Individuals had been visiting the camp outside the PM's office, and advocacy by Merle Hodge, Clyde Harvey and Peter Minshall was visible from early. Union and MSJ folk, led by David Abdulah, had joined, and were part of a larger show of solidarity by civil society.
Columnists had begun to write of the Armstrong Report as a national issue, and a route to justice for citizens challenging top-down government.
Along with women's NGOs, feminists from UWI were the first to publicly demonstrate collective solidarity with the long struggle of the women of the HRM.
For the first time, some of my students who came with me understood the difference between online and street activism, connected to the sacrifices women make to speak truth to power, and faced their own responsibility to be more informed.
However, planned only since Friday, through our small but collective effort, Sunday's gathering of about 600 was organic and genuine. Nobody was bussed in.
Nobody came to deny the highway they need to those travelling from San Fernando to Point Fortin. Nobody was paid or pressured. People came with their own flags. They gathered to hear why mediation was a strategy for a mutually acceptable end to this eight-year standoff. They prayed and softly sang.
There was an instant of magic when Minshall told everyone to raise their candles and deyas, for all of we is one with such citizen effort, and in that second the only two streetlights near us in Nelson Mandela Park switched off, perfectly on cue.
One could have thought it was only Minshall's obeah if it were not for the fact that Fr Harvey was inside the medical centre praying with Kublalsingh.
As Harvey said: "Let the celestial light...," electricity dipped in the room, same time Minsh in the park was doing his voodoo.
Arriving, Mrs Persad-Bissessar must have been struck by the numbers and the energy, as every politician notices when people take to the streets, and her assistants taking pictures would have recorded citizens like me who are not PNM, ILP, COP or anti-government.
Worth noting, the majority of people there probably comprised the sleeping tiger of that "third," untethered force who helped vote in the PM in 2010.
Amazingly, even when the vigil was over, everyone stayed waiting for her to emerge from meeting Kublalsingh.
People waited, without being asked, hoping that the miracle of a middle ground would be found, hoping for more than a PR play. The waiting led some to shout shame, and to threaten blocking the PM's car. The women of the HRM began to resolutely chant, "Re-route." Others stood silently, holding their lights, their peaceful presence voicing their principles and politics. Such multiple dynamics are the risks and strengths of the momentum ahead.
Aggressive polarisation is also growing. On social media, it's mostly insult and blame of the PM, Kublalsingh, anybody really.
The irony is that, fundamentally, and in quieter conversation, all "sides" can realise we have shared priorities and needs for the best traffic solutions, wisest use of our budget, state transparency from truthful politicians, and least destruction of our children's environment.
Despite circulating misinformation, political division, frustration and cynicism, our current lesson as a society is how to weld all these scattered pieces, emotions and agendas into at least one idea, precious and whole, on which we agree.
As more join the fray, our challenge is to widen recognition of the common ground that is our reality.