Oddly, it took a gloomy, rainy day for September 11th to feel almost normal again.

That bright blue sky, five anniversaries in a row, was a cruel reminder of that terrible Tuesday morning six years ago.

It felt impossible to move on faced by the menace of that blue sky.

Yesterday with its rain and thunder, its umbrellas, rain slickers and galoshes felt like any other day. I tried to connect to my pain and I wanted to cry — because I’d said I’d never feel normal on September 11th.

But I didn’t cry.

Maybe it was a choice and it wasn’t the weather at all. I didn’t listen to the names, I didn’t attend a ceremony or sit in Old First Church as I’d done before. I consciously thought about my friend who died many times and wondered what the family members, who I write the FDNY newsletter for, were doing.

But I didn’t cry.

Yesterday the grief of September 11 belonged to the family and friends who lost loved ones. It is and always was a private grief.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t a public ache because there is. As New Yorkers we ache for what happened to our city and to our friends and neighbors. We also feel exasperation and rage about the  mid-guided and calamitous war that is being waged erroneously in the name of September 11th.

Last night I looked for the Tribute in Lights in the foggy night sky above Key Food but there was only the vaguest hint of a beam. Around ten, I noticed a blurry blob of white where the lights hit the clouds. It looked like a moon.

A new moon, I said to myself. At the end of a gloomy, wet September 11th, there was a blurry moon in the sky created by the lights that I could barely see.